Month: July 2015

I have always been aware that students learn best through experiential practices, but find it challenging to incorporate hands-on activities into every aspect of our 7th grade math curriculum. During this summer’s Kenan Fellowship, I came to realize that such a goal may not be attainable, nor beneficial to my students. While in the lab, it became clear that “real” scientists must often complete tedious, repetitious, mind-numbing tasks in order to accomplish their overall research goals and make new discoveries to share with the world.

Understanding this aspect of life, that not everything is fun and engaging, will be very important to my students’ ultimate success in whatever field they choose to pursue – scientists need to cull through massive amounts of data to find patterns and connections, musicians must practice the same musical score ad nauseam to perfect their performance, chefs need to wait patiently for a glistening glaze – such patience and fortitude are not often expressly taught in the classroom. Henceforth, I intend to do just that in order to help my students become better prepared for life.

My realization did not crystalize in a single moment, but after reflection on the many moments of observation throughout the summer. My peers on Team Dirt had to wait hours (days?) for their bacteria to grow; those on Team Jaws spent long days in a basement at UF photographing sharks’ teeth and jaws; Team Ants faced challenges and frustrations as the first cohort in their study; and my eMammal Team sifted through hundreds of photos, many of which had no animals to identify, and witnessed interns entering data from stacks of surveys in the hopes of finding commonalities and differences among respondents.

THIS is the reality that we need to share with our students, as much as we need to share the fun and engaging aspects of our citizen science experience. THIS is the reality that many of our young adults have not yet come to terms with as they struggle to find meaningful employment. THIS is the reality that awaits my students in any field, in any part of our global economy.

The trick is to encourage students to find careers in which they are so invested and so inspired by, that those boring, tedious aspects, inevitable in every profession, seem minimal compared to the joy they receive from following their passions!

For this week’s blog we were tasked with writing about our biggest challenge and success in creating educational resources relating to our internship.

CHALLENGE
The biggest personal challenge was to ensure that I didn’t duplicate effort. Working collaboratively with PLCs has become a way of life at our school (at least in the math department). The Fellow with whom I was working, however, had never really worked with PLCs (she’s been the only 7th grade math teacher at her school for many years), and she wasn’t comfortable using a co-development process. The limited number of standards to which our project applied made it difficult to come up with separate topics, yet we decided to work independently – that was a challenge, that I’m proud to say, we were able to overcome. Ultimately, we ended up with more lessons in a shorter time span, so it all worked out for the best!

SUCCESS
My biggest personal success was developing the core process model for the eMammal project. Early on, I was having trouble figuring out how all of the many pieces of eMammal fit together, so I took some time to create a flow map (see “You Get What You Give…”). This map provides the foundation from which all other lessons can grow, allowing teachers across the State of NC and beyond, to share their eMammal curriculum.

…or at least that’s what “they” say. In this particular case, however, “they” are most certainly mistaken!

  I say this because there is no conceivable way that I can repay
Dr. Stephanie Schuttler for welcoming us into her amazing world at the Biodiversity & Earth Observation Lab. She has worked tirelessly to provide us with many adventures that can never be recreated and will never be forgotten! For that, I am forever grateful.

Having acknowledged the disparity in our ability to “give to” one another, I hope to help Dr. Schuttler, and the eMammal team, create a scalable model for Middle School implementation of interdisciplinary lessons using the Camera Trap Stakeout as the foundation. This is what we have so far:
Denise Humphries, Jordan Hohm, and I will also be developing and contributing lessons relating to Art, Language Arts, Math, and maybe even Social Studies!

Our goal, as I understand it, is to develop a system to PROVIDE any teacher, any where in the world, ACCESS to the world of mammals through CAMERA TRAPPING, and to ENCOURAGE teachers to SHARE their lessons and activities with other participants of eMammal and Citizen Scientists everywhere. No big deal, right?!?

Yesterday, at our Lunch with Liz, we learned that the ultimate goal of #StudentsDiscover and #CitizenScientists is to rule the Universe! Here’s how they intend to achieve it:

Let it be known by all that I fully intend to join them on their journey!

As an educator being educated, I am in my favorite element – experiencing life as a learner. My highest hope and mission as a teacher is to help each of my students Learn to Love to Learn! Through my Kenan Fellowship I am documenting my personal commitment to lifelong learning, and as most who will read this blog know and understand, modeling behavior is much more effective than being a sage on the stage.

My excitement about the eMammal Project can not easily be expressed in words, but I am confident that my passion will shine through to my students, as I share with them my adventures and hope for their futures as Citizen Scientists. My fellowship has provided a behind-the-scenes view of how regular people can help scientists in their research. Each of us can contribute to the knowledge-bank of the world! How cool is that?!?

As a co-creator of curriculum, I hope to provide other educators and learners with resources to assist in the exploration and understanding of our world. The eMammal Team will be working together to create interdisciplinary lesson plans, videos, data resources, and field guides to make citizen science as accessible as possible.

As an advocator for education, of any and all forms, I will share my experiences as a Kenan Fellow far and wide, in hopes of instilling the importance of knowledge, in and of itself. One of the most influential discussions that was held this week, surrounded the question of “how do researchers justify funding?” We have learned about so many intriguing projects in the Earth Observation & Biodiversity Lab at the Museum of Natural Sciences, but few have a direct impact on HUMANS, as a species. Our group expressed concern that, especially in the current political environment, it must be difficult to obtain government funding. Dr. Stephanie Schuttler, our postdoc mentor, explained that sometimes we need to advocate for our right to learn for the sake of learning, even if it doesn’t have a direct impact on people. Gotta love that #fancyscientist!

Please join us on our quest to find more Citizen Scientists!

THIS is what a Scientist Looks Like!
Thanks for the t-shirts Rob Dunn
http://robdunnlab.com/projects/students-discover/