I will be now into the third week of school with my students, and continuously go back, with some nostalgia, to this summer and what a incredible experience it was. I learned so much about Paleontology, about prehistory, evolution, and the past itself.  I never thought I would get so into learning about fossils, geology, and all those topics that were not too linked with me before this summer.  But now, I have jumped into prehistory, together with my teaching team,  and feel comfortable teaching about this topic. And more than comfortable, I now feel empowered as a teacher; I feel that I can do anything in teaching and take greater risks in making my classroom a better learning environment. This empowerment has brought greater joy in teaching and in doing a better job. I feel I can teach anything to my students, and that they are capable of learning through the classroom experiences, as they make progress in their academic growth. My goal now is to transmit this empowerment feeling to my students, so that that feel they have the power and potential to learn anything they want.

At school we have started our first trimester expedition, where our 6th grade students are learning about the past (prehistoric times) ,and how we learn about the past. Through our lessons, and have seen how our students are building up in knowledge to be ready and prepared for the “shark teeth lessons” I have designed. My team teachers are supporting me 100% of the time, and we are making plans now for our field trips to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, and to Aurora.

This journey , that started this summer, continues as a very positive learning experience now at school.

I never thought this was going to be such an amazing experience! I have enjoyed every bit of this summer and have learned a lot, too. I will start the new school year as a renewed teacher, inspired to do new things, especially in introducing more ‘citizen science’ in the classroom.  I love citizen science ! and agree in that it’s one of the best ways to teach science and get students interested in science.

I want my 6th graders to become young citizen scientists; to do ‘real science’ through the lessons I have prepared, and to feel the importance and impact of what they are doing, as they become themselves, ‘scientists’. For my students to do real science, they are going to go through the complete research/scientific process any scientist goes through; they are developing a case study where they will focus on what was happening in the Aurora phosphate mine area millions of years ago-  a forensics study. They will research, get familiar with the area of study, get familiar with prehistoric facts, land formation process, to then focus on one aspect- fossils of the Pliocene and Miocene. Students will ask scientific questions to answer as they measure and identify shark teeth found on prehistoric sediments, to then analyze data to draw conclusions on what were shark populations like and other species during that time period. Through this whole process, the students will get the taste of what it means to be a scientist, how it feels to be a scientist, situations and challenges encountered as a scientist. They will realize that scientists, like other people, learn from challenges, from mistakes, and from persistence.

I think the conditions for success through all the development of this case study, will be for students  to feel comfortable working in groups, sharing with each other, to feel ok. when they make mistakes, to have a growth mindset. Another important aspect will be the notion that they will be collecting real data, data that will be useful for scientists, and that they can be scientists, as well.