Summing up the Summer.

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Carlos y yoMy

Summer experience at the Duplin Winery has been awesome and full of new and exciting experiences and adventures. I was able to experience every part of the Winery – the agrotourism sector, the vineyards, the bistro, the retail store, tours and tastings, productions and processing, and finances. These experiences have afforded me with a comprehensive understanding of how the winery is compartmentalized with each part playing a key role to the business. This is an important understanding I want my kiddos to conceptualize. Also, the variety of experiences will help me build connections for the different interests of my many students. I can design mathematics lessons about planning weddings and murder mystery dinners for some of my young and stylish ladies. I can explain the machinery used in the fields and in processing and productions for my engineer interested students. I can teach about agriculture and growing and harvesting for my farmer kiddos.

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The majority of my time was spent working in the vineyards with two intelligent, talented and kind men – Carlos and Torrevio – and I believe these experiences will have the largest impact on my classroom, kiddos, school, and greater community. As I have previously mentioned, the economy of Duplin County is agriculture. Careers in the field of agriculture are likely in many of my kid’s futures, so that’s an area I would like to well-educate them in and provide hands-on experience. Agriculture is fast changing in the 21st century, incorporating many new growing techniques, machinery, bioengineering and biotechnology. Pests are constantly finding ways to beat the old methods and farmers need to integrate new methods and technology to be steps ahead of the buggers. The population of humans is also ever growing, so methods of mass production are needed. With increasing global warming and toxic pollution from carbon emissions, environmentally friendly techniques are needed. There is an increasing need for STEM based agricultural planning and practices to address these needs and concerns. Thus, there are many opportunities in the growing field of 21st century agriculture that my Duplin County kiddos could be a big part of.

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In the vineyards, I have been propagating plants to create a new vineyard, balancing soil nutrients, training the vines to grow where we want them to, sampling for pests and addressing concerns, identifying molds and fungi and applying insecticides and fungicides. I’ve been spending hours in the hot hot carolina sun squatting and clipping runners and suckers that steal the plants energy and nutrients inhibiting grape production . New knowledge has also prompted me to research further about new technology and practices being used all over North Carolina and the United States. Before my experiences and research this summer, I didn’t know anything about growing, nor viticulture, nor important 21st agriculture technologies.

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Inspired by my Summer experiences, my bigger longterm goal is to create a garden and mini-vineyard at Charity Middle School, and to use this garden to excite, engage, and teach my kiddos about the growing and future college and career opportunities in STEM and Agriculture. Through the garden, I hope for my students and the community at large to reconnect to growing and consuming real food from the earth. I hope together we can learn about and practice local, sustainable food production, and spread these practices through out the community – and my kiddos can be the leaders of this.

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My summer experience has also help me build important communities of connection and collaboration. I have been connected with my Kenan Fellows cohort and staff of awesome STEM educators. We can collaborate on lesson planning and classroom ideas, bouncing ideas off of each other and sharing cool resources and tools. We can work together on projects of greater educational transformations. When we are stuck, we can look to each other for resources and as sources of motivation and recharging. The experience has also connected me with a greater Duplin County community. I have built many connections at the Duplin Winery and with farmers all through out North Carolina – all who are excited to help and be a part of future agricultural projects with my kiddos. Overall, the experience leaves me feeling like I have a bigger support network and greater community of collaboration, in which I can better help my kiddos, school, and community.

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Ahah!

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My “Ahah moment” is my realization of the importance of integrating science, technology, engineering and mathematics into the field of modern day agriculture, which is rapidly evolving.   Agriculture employs over 20% of North Carolina’s residents.  In Duplin county where my kiddos and I live, agriculture is the main economy and provides the majority of employment in the county.  In a 21st century globally competitive society, agriculture is rapidly progressing and incorporating more innovative science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  My students need to be exposed to the real-life applications of STEM to improve production and profit, such as bioengineering, biotechnology and selective breeding.

 Kids in Duplin County grow up with a great deal of exposure to agriculture and agriculture is essentially the economy of the county.  If the children in Duplin County are to stay in their community, agriculture is one of the best (and only) career options. Many of us, my students included, understand agriculture to be simple growing and harvesting and selling, but the field of agriculture is evolving immensely in a 21st century global society.  Many of my students are uninterested in agriculture, perhaps because they are over-exposed and bored by it or perhaps because they consider agriculture to be a form of waged labor and The agriculture workforce at large, Duplin County included, needs growers with deeper STEM knowledge and experience to advance the field.  This next generation of Duplin County students can play a key role in transforming agriculture in their community, and in result help the economy of their county.  This potential opportunity for my students right in their community has sparked a big “Ahah” for me.

21st century agricultural advances has to revolve around the application of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics into growing, harvesting, production and processing.  It is now a competition to make the best products to sell at the highest costs, while spending the least amount on raw materials and labor. At the Duplin Winery, contract farmers sell their grapes to processing and production and they get paid by the quality and taste of their grapes.  It’s important for our students to conceptualize business and industry components of this process.  They need to know the importance of making a competitive product, better than the other farmers products. Also, our students need to be aware of the rapidly growing global population and the global food crisis, and thus the rising need to produce in mass quantities to feed globally.  That being said, they should be aware of the pushes towards local production and sustainability, with growing concerns of carbon emissions and pollution.

Modern genetics is quickly advancing and full of discoveries, including applications in modern agriculture.  The 7th grade science curriculum includes a genetics unit, which is a good opportunity for deep exploration and career application.  It is a gateway to open students minds to opportunities in the fields of genetics and agriculture, and the intersection in which these two growing fields merge.  My idea is to use my 7th grade genetics unit to introduce some of the important applications of STEM in modern agriculture. I would like to introduce them to the fields of bioengineering, biotechnology and selective breeding.

In one lesson, I will have my students use selective breeding (through punnett squares and coin flipping) to attempt to select for the best traits in order to create the best possible crop of grapes. The lesson serves as a real-life application of how STEM, specifically genetics and bioengineering, are used in the real world, specifically to improve agricultural production and success.  Although the lesson is intended for a 7th grade science genetics unit, the lesson integrates science, math, technology and engineering, as that’s how it occurs in the real-world.  In the career of agriculture, the subjects are naturally integrated and a good worker needs to be competent in all subject areas.  Additionally, North Carolina and the rest of the South East are full of universities with growing bioengineering programs.  Exposure in the classroom to exciting and relevant college and career paths is good encouragement for Duplin County students to go to college and to bring back important knowledge and skills that will help develop the community and economy.

Reflections on Creating Curriculum

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Writing curriculum has been quite a frustrating experience. I have so many ideas and experience so many waves of inspiration and excitement.  I come back from an exciting day at Duplin Winery or in the vineyards and have an “ahah” of how I can have my kiddos feel similarly enthused about learning.  I start brainstorming a lesson plan that’s engaging and relevant and will connect my students to real life and their community and world around them, along with potential future college and career paths.
Then, after a bit, I get disappointed and stop.  I realize how constrained I am by the essential standards and common core.  I feel restricted by the separated way we tend to teach at my school.  Our subjects are separate entities and we rarely work together to integrate our concepts, although it would be so much better for our students if we did.  A lot of the curriculum ideas I have serve to teach important real-life, real-world, lasting skills, concepts and mindsets.  I’m inclined to make my lessons to teach my students in a similar way to which I am learning through my externship.  The way I am learning is fluid and integrated.  Every aspect of the winery – planning, growing, processing, production, the bistro, the business, etc. –  includes aspects of science, math, social studies, technology and engineering.  So I make my lesson plans mimicking how things are actually happening in my externship, naturally integrating a number of concepts and subjects, along with lasting mindsets and skills.
I stop and I look over my work and realize that the lessons I have created include 6th and 8th grade science standards and 7th and 8th grade math standards, along with math, design and business skills that aren’t anywhere in standards and critical science, inquiry and laboratory skills that aren’t anywhere in the standards.  I become frustrated because I feel like the lesson plans are natural and integrated.  They recreate how things actually occur in real-life, which is a better way for my students to learn.  It makes sense for students to learn all relevant subjects together when they occur in real life that way.  And, I care about teaching my students mindsets and skills that will last beyond the classroom – that they can apply to their future studies and careers.  However, I teach 7th grade science and I am locked into covering all of my standards and preparing my students for the end of year assessments.  This makes me feel like I can’t stray too far from my set standards, even to teach important skills and mindsets and naturally integrate other subjects.
I am now trying to settle into making some lesson plans that at least integrate math standards and scientific inquiry and laboratory skills, but are built around my 7th science essential standards.  I hope to instigate some movement towards integrating subject areas at my school, especially if I can get other teachers to collaborate with me on the lessons when we come back for the new school year.  I am also thinking of doing a longer, integrated lesson at the beginning of the year before we move on to a set schedule of covering standards.  The project would be creating a mini-vineyard and garden at Charity Middle School.  It would integrate 6th grade science review, scientific method and inquiry and analysis skills, data and laboratory skills, math and design skills, etc.  It would serve as a backbone project foundations to relate the rest of my curriculum to through out the year and for other teachers to use.  It would also work very nicely into the beginning of our weather and atmosphere unit.

Connecting Your Summer Externship to Your Classroom

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I have been attempting to come up with very specific units and topics and standards to format my lessons upon, but most of the connections I’ve made to distinct standards have been too much of a reach and not quite right.  At my externship I have been learning by doing and in a very natural and integrated way.  Business and industry are connected with mathematics and science, and science is connected with mathematics and engineering, and everything dependent on all components being taken care of and working together.
It was hard for me to imagine creating lesson plans for only science or only math.  It’s silly to teach only specific parts of a process and to disregard other parts when so many important parts work together to complete the whole.  However, subjects at my school are taught as completely separate entities and there is very little to no interdisciplinary connection and collaboration.  We all teach to our standards and have very little knowledge of the standards outside of our subject areas.  With common core and the essential standards, we have so many standards to cover that we don’t want to ‘waste time’ straying from checking our boxes.
I am moving towards to using my Kenan Fellows externship as a gateway to interdisciplinary classroom learning, especially in the STEM subjects.  You can’t teach any of these subjects without naturally integrating the other subjects.  This is the way it is in the real world and the way it should be in our classrooms.  I know its going to be tough to start this in my school, but its the direction we need to head, and I hope more and more teachers will hop on board.
My other focus in connecting my externship to my classroom and curriculum revolves around the scientific inquiry, reasoning and analysis skills, and data collecting and laboratory skills such as sampling, measuring, etc., and data interoperation literacy.  As a staff, we don’t really integrate these skills into our science lessons.  Last year at the beginning of my first year, I was told by the other science teachers NOT to spend time on these skills and so simple address my standards.  We focus on facts and information, and ignore the important science as inquiry skills, process skills, and mindsets.  This year I want to focus on integrating science as inquiry skills into my lessons, as well as chart/map/graph interpretation and analysis.
At the beginning of the year, my idea is to begin with a two-week project-based, culture building science skills unit. Carlos and I have been talking about planting a small vineyard at Charity using it as a platform for my students to learn by doing, through inquiry and experimentation.  From here, I could easily connect related lessons through out the year when it is right and relevant and naturally integrate science skills.  It would also create a project space and platform for other teachers to teach from.  My beginning of the year two week unit idea would:
  1. Be a backbone project to build lessons on through out the year in my class and for other teachers and students
  2. Establish a bigger mission and ownership for my students
  3. Be real-world/real life project for my students and get my students intrigued and excited
  4. Involve my students in creating the the project, the space for learning and planting, setting up, weeding, etc.
  5. Serve to create research groups of my students and have each group test come up with a different experiment to do with our planting project
  6. Focus on scientific method and inquiry skills: reasoning, analysis, evaluation, sampling, testing different hypotheses, data analysis, validity, reliability, etc.
  7. Be a refresher on plant science, soil science, photosynthesis, etc.

Technology Challenges

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At the NCCAT conference, I was very much reminded of the immense technology challenges we face at my extremely rural Title I school.  The tools presented at the conference were incredible and ever so engaging for students, preparing them as competitive 21st century global citizens.  The tools we learned about would greatly improve the excitement, rigor and student engagement.  The tools used 21st century technology that would prepare my students as global citizens in the constantly evolving world of STEM.
Driving home from the conference, I felt excited about the potentials of these new-to-me tools, but also frustrated and deflated.  Most of the tools and activities required computer access or laboratories or city and industry access.  My school (the largest middle school in Duplin County) has only two computer labs which are shared by the entire 6th, 7th and 8th grades.  The computers are slow and re-start frequently, often times making for a frustrating instructional experience with much wasted time.  That being said, a lot of my best lessons are done in those labs – interactive virtual scientific labs and rigorous web quests.
I have been feeling pretty disturbed, unsettled, and discouraged by the inequities in our education system.  The world of STEM holds so many incredible future career opportunities for this next generation.  However, only certain populations of our youth have access to these opportunities or even access to knowing that the opportunities exist.  Only some have access to the knowledge and preparation, and to people who will expose them, guide them and teach them.  The playing field is so uneven.
As upset as I am mulling all of this over, I feel motivated to take action and fight for educational equity and for my talented, intelligent, and hard-working students.  The fires of why I teach what I teach and why I teach where I teach have been re-ignited. I want my kids to be exposed to the life possibilities and opportunities outside their communities and for them to bring back their knowledge and experiences to their communities.  Ultimately, I want for my students to be invested in and involved in of their own community growth and transformation so that their community can be a sustainable place full of opportunities.  My mind is currently buzzing with ideas of ways I can create pathways of opportunity in my classroom, school, and community.  I am looking into grants, and for STEM organizations I can perhaps connect with and bring to Duplin County.  And, I believe the Kenan Fellows program is an excellent first initiative to this growth I want to happen.  The Kenan Fellows program will help connect my school to the most exciting and flourishing agricultural industry in the county, and I will be connected to an incredible support system of STEM educators throughout North Carolina.

Highlights galore at NCCAT

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This week at NCCAT has been packed full of growth and highlights..  As a beginning teacher in a rural and disconnected region of NC, I haven’t had a lot of contact with other STEM teachers.  It has been incredible to learn from and collaborate with a group of inspired STEM leaders, coming from all over the states.  As a young and inexperienced science teacher, especially as a Teach for America teacher with no science or education classes in college, I came feeling somewhat intimated by this amazing group of experienced and accomplished Kenan Fellows.  But mostly, I came ready to question, observe, listen and learn and to soak up everything I possibly could from this amazing new team I am blessed to be a part of.  So, I did just this. Apart from the awesome sessions, I spent my meal times, break times, evenings, etc. reaching out to everybody I could to learn about their experiences and ideas in the classroom and in life.

The week was a nerdy science teachers dream come true..  I got to learn about exciting new research going on all over the state, creative STEM education and real-life application happening in classrooms all over the state, and exciting new ways to make STEM better at my school.  I even got to spend my off time nerding out about education and science these with passionate people.

The professional development at NCCAT has been the best professional development I’ve ever experienced.  It has been rich with knowledge and awesome tools that I can bring back to my classroom and share with my school as a whole.  Here are some of my favorite tools I learned about and plan on implementing in my teaching and at school: Kahoot, Trello, Pintrest, Discovery Ed, Educreation, Citizen Science, Evernote, Kahoot, Answer Garden, Sketch Up, Poll Everywhere, Wing Clips and Teachingtolerance.

I am leaving the conference feeling inspired and motivated.  I will utilize the knowledge and resources I will build through my Kenan Fellows experience to make important transformations in my classroom, school and community.  And, I am leaving feeling like I am part of a supportive team to collaborate with in this endeavor.

Hopes and Goals for my Kenan Fellows Journey

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I am a 7th Grade Science teacher at Charity Middle School in Rose Hill, North Carolina.  Rose Hill has a population of about 1,500 and it is part of Duplin County, NC, in the South Eastern corner of the state.  It is a very rural area and the primary (only) economy is agriculture and meat processing. There are more hogs in Duplin County than there are people in all of North Carolina.  There is not a lot of STEM awareness or industry or opportunities.  The schools here have very limited funding and resources, and not a lot of connection with outside professional learning communities.  The kids grow up with very little excitement for STEM subjects and without awareness of the STEM opportunities out there for them.

The Kenan Fellows program is completely new to my school and an incredibly opportunity for the students, staff and the community.   My externship is with The Duplin Winery, which is probably the biggest industry in Duplin County (apart from Murphy Brown’s Hog Factory), and the place with the most STEM happening and connections to be made.

Through my Kenan Fellows experience, I am really hoping to change my students perspectives of STEM education and classroom learning as a whole.  Currently, our students are pretty disheartened about classroom learning.  Education as a whole is not generally a huge community value, and there is not a lot of outside support within the schools.  I hope to make more connections between our school and the community, and to create communities and spaces of collaboration.  I want to make classroom learning more meaningful, purposeful and relevant to the students lives and futures.

I am hoping that experiencing STEM that is personal to my students will help me be an empowering person in their lives.  I will be enabled to create a curriculum that is directly relevant and inspiring to them and aligned to standards.  Being able to show to show my students why learning matters to them as people in the world beyond the classroom will be invaluable. Together, we can uncover how learning matters to important issues in their lives and communities.  Many students dislike and struggle with STEM, especially when it entails meaningless repetition in the classroom.  STEM makes so much more sense when it is learned through applicable means, and I want to help STEM education come alive for my students.  I believe education becomes empowering only if it is truly meaningful and purposeful.  For this to happen, learning must be experiential, and directly relevant and relatable to students’ lives.  Students learn best when constantly connecting classroom learning to their daily lives and the world around them.  In this way, learning becomes authentic and real, thus engaging students to invest themselves.  When learning comes to life, students will steadily build invaluable skills and work ethics that outlast the classroom.

I am hoping that my students will greatly benefit from a hands-on, real-life, problem-based curriculum that the Kenan Fellows Program will help me construct.  With practice, my students will form the mindset of making connections and continuously applying the things they learn in school to the real world as 21st century citizens in a globalized society.  Through exploration and discovery, they will develop deep critical questioning, reasoning and analysis skills.  This mindset is one of the most powerful and liberating assets that a child can hold. This is the mindset that will help students recognize education as the pathway to opportunities.  When students can consistently connect their classroom learning to their lives and futures, they will conceptualize the big picture and what they are work.

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Hello All! I am honored and excited to be a part of the Kenan Fellows Program.  I look forward to an interesting  externship this Summer and collaborating with other Kenan Fellows to make STEM real, meaningful and engaging for our students!