M-I-T-E

“We hit the Kenan jackpot!” Was my reflection during our second of three Lunches with Liz at the museum.  I knew that we were in for something special when I found out about the Students Discover project, but I didn’t know how awesome this project is!  Working with 12 other like-minded middle school teachers has been such a great experience.  We have been able to compare experiences and bounce ideas off of each other about our projects and lessons.  Being in the lab with 2 other teachers helped us talk out the connections to our curriculum (because they aren’t always so obvious).

The goal of the students discover project is to create lessons in citizen science that are scale-able so that they can be easily adapted in other classrooms.  I think it may take some time to find out if we were ultimately successful when we find out when and where these lessons start to be used.

The biggest success, thus far, of the project and lesson plan writing piece is what has come about through collaboration, with the 2 other teachers on the project, the 11 other teachers as students discover and the 4 post-docs and other scientists at the museum. I think we have really produced some good strong plans and activities that are going to be engaging and exciting for our students and hopefully students around the state, country, world and universe (according to Rob Dunn).  Each of us have heard about the lessons created in the other labs and we want to use them in our classes this year as well.  I am planning to teach not only my mite lessons but incorporating the sharks teeth and fossil lessons into my curriculum too.

Team MITE working on our lesson plans.

There are a couple of challenges in writing these plans, I think we have overcome them through the collaborations and conversations.  The first challenge is that we are working with mites which are basically invisible, and then to take it to another level we are working with their DNA which is definitely invisible.  Middle school students have a hard time understanding things that they cannot see and observe.  Dan, my mentor, was really worried that it would be hard to get students excited and involved because they can’t see any of the processes that are happening.  Another challenge going along with this is that classroom teachers don’t have the equipment that is in the lab.  We can’t do DNA extractions, PCR’s, gel electrophoresis, and sequence DNA with our students because we don’t have the equipment and materials need for all of these complicated processes.  We will be able to do DNA extraction with strawberries so that students can experience that process, and show them online interactive virtual labs so that students can see the process and understand what is going on at the lab with their mite samples.

Another big challenge for us is actually writing the lessons.  I know what I would do in my class and how I would do it. The challenge is not knowing how to write lesson plans for others to view and follow, I am very unsure of the words and phrases I should use.  I also realize as I am writing the rough draft that there are several materials that need to be added in order to give a complete lesson to others to use.  What started out as a simple 2 or 3 day lesson has become a very large complicated document that has several add ons and extra documents attached so that it will be complete.