This blog has been a way to inform others about my progress in the project as well as a place for me to purposefully reflect. I intend to continue blogging next year to document my journey as a beginning teacher. This blog is an excellent place to show growth prior to the fellowship to well after. It is a place to document many journeys as an educator, a science teacher, a leader, a volunteer, and now as a scientist.

The most memorable moment of my school year was when my students presented their findings from my Kenan project to the community. They had the opportunity to speak with teachers, students, district leaders, our local newspaper, local news representatives, senators, and parents. They did such a wonderful job of communicating the results of their project as well as their attitudes toward science. This is a moment that I would not trade for the world. My Kenan project empowered my students to achieve things they never thought they could and because of that I would recommend Kenan Fellows to any teacher who desires to have a similar outcome. This fellowship empowers teachers to empower their students, and as the future leaders of the world we owe them the best opportunities we can possible provide.  

As a result of this fellowship, I have gained many leadership opportunities and have helped to change/improve my students opinions of science before they go to high school. This year has been better in that I was able to successfully implement  real, authentic science that my students can carry with them to high school and beyond. I have grown so much from last year to now and I am so thankful to the Kenan Fellowship for providing me the opportunity to grow as a teacher leader.

My final curriculum product is a six-day unit that provides background information to the actual lab we completed during the summer. This extension begins with a video on the nitrogen cycle followed by an activity where students read about information on the Nitrogen Cycle. After reading the information students will color code a nitrogen cycle diagram. On day two, students will read a primary document written by George Washington Carver. This relates to the history mentioned in the video. Students will analyze the primary source and determine if there is any bias in Carver’s writing. On day three, students will read a National Geographic article, “Why Tiny Microbes Mean Big Things to Farming.” Students will determine the main idea as a class and the teacher will write it on the board. With group members, students will create a tree map with the title of the article at top and the headings of the article as the branches. With their group, students will find sentences in each section of the article that they feel support the central idea of the article. They will write these sentences verbatim on yellow sticky notes and stick them in the appropriate location on the tree map. Then students will determine the So what? and So why? of the article: what was it about and why is it important. This will be written on the poster. On day 4 students will fold a piece of notebook paper in half the long way and they will write their so what sentence on a pink sticky note and their so why sentence on a blue sticky note. Students will rephrase the sentences from the tree map and write them in their own words on yellow sticky notes. These sticky notes will be layered, starting with pink and ending with blue on the left side of the notebook paper. On day 5 students will copy all the words on their sticky notes, word-for-word on the right side of their folded notebook paper. The sentences will connect into a long paragraph. On day 6 students will read their paragraphs aloud with their their group members to check for grammatical or spelling errors.

I would like to see my unit implemented in the language arts/social studies classrooms that are teamed with the science teachers who implement our project. I think it would be amazing to have such a meaningful project in classrooms that do not teach science so students can make more relevant connects to multiple curriculums. Instead of teachers approaching their curriculum as a silo, we can approach it together and integrate concepts.

Before beginning my project, I explained to my students that the project they were going to take part in was part of my Kenan Fellowship. I showed them pictures from many summer experiences as well as pictures of Julia and I in the lab. During my implementation, I continued to tell my students to measure precisely because their data really mattered to a real scientist. I would continue to reinforce this each day and remind them that they were helping a real scientist. I don’t think my students really understood this until Julia came to visit our classroom. When she came and they showed her their plates, it really clicked with them that she did care about their precision in following the protocols. Throughout the year, because of this Ah-Ha moment, students have continued to care about their precision when measuring and collecting data. This would not be the case had it not been for my Kenan Fellowship.

My Kenan Fellowship has changed me in many ways. The way I approach instruction is entirely different than the way I approached it before my fellowship. Since my summer experience and the implementation of my project I relate my curriculum to real, relevant science that the students can connect to. I tried to do this before my fellowship, but since I am capable of doing this in a much more meaningful way.

Also, as a result of my fellowship, I have a wealth of new colleagues to collaborate with from various backgrounds. I collaborate most with my Students Discover team. We mostly communicate about how we could potentially implement each other’s projects in our classrooms. We also communicate about our triumphs and struggles in our school districts. This serves as a support system that we would have not had, if it had not been for the fellowship.

During my fellowship I worked directly with Dr. Julia Stevens and indirectly with many others in the Genomics and Microbiology lab. In the lab, Julia explained her research to us in the first day, and the remaining time was used to investigate how we could best implement her project in our classrooms. We worked very hard to develop protocols that all teachers could implement despite what their school budgets may be. We were successful in accomplishing this. We worked alongside Julia in the lab but had plenty of opportunities to work independently as well after we practiced protocols under her supervision. Since completing my summer experience, Julia and I have kept in touch in regards to implementation questions, other citizen science opportunities, and the path I may take to pursue my doctorate. We will continue to communicate about other ways to approach her research in the classroom as well as my future endeavors.

The Professional Advancement Institutes were beneficial in many ways. I enjoyed being able to collaborate with Kenan Fellows that were from other projects in addition to my Students Discover cohort. The PAI’s were well structured and offered a variety of trainings from personality assessments, to leadership beyond the classroom as well as how to communicate effectively with policy makers.

I felt all the sessions were valuable, but I especially enjoyed the session where we listened to the NC SPIN debate. This is an area I feel I’ve grown in since becoming a Kenan Fellow, and because of this session I feel much more comfortable discussing. I feel I am now better equipped in approaching legislators about issues in education.

I also enjoyed the session that taught us how to better compose abstracts for conferences. I liked that our presenter gave many examples of abstracts and we were able to sort through them as a team.

The PAI’s are very different from professional development I have received in the past because we had the opportunity to deepen our knowledge on topics most of us have worked with before. I also enjoyed working with a variety of teachers of different content. We were able to collaborate with many different perspectives in mind.

I am very fortunate this year to teach the same students I taught during my first year of teaching in sixth grade. This year, the curriculum is fairly new, but the students are familiar. It is beneficial knowing  the capabilities of my students and because I know they need extra reinforcement of the curriculum, I have implemented CK12 this year to review concepts. CK12 is a non-profit organization that works hard to provide resources and materials to educators and students to make a quality education accessible to everyone. Students are about to sign into CK12 using their google email address that is issued by the district. Once there, they join my science class to see the resources I have shared with them. There are a variety of materials that are geared toward different learning styles. Students can read information, watch videos, practice assignments, etc. These resources are not just for science teachers, but for all subjects. I usually give my students a guide to help keep them on track and they navigate the site.

This has helped tremendously, especially with students who struggle with English and students who have difficulty reading in general. This provides the information in a way that is easy to navigate. Students like having different tasks to complete in order to review the material. When they come to class all I have to say is today is a CK12 day and they automatically log onto their Chromebook and go to the website.

This has also helped with behavioral issues. Students who are normally disengaged are willing to complete the tasks assigned to them in CK12. Because this is independent work they do not feel pressured to perform in front of their peers. Everyone is equalized in the beginning because everyone is doing the same task. For students who cannot read, they are able to listen to the text with a Google Chrome App and no one knows the difference because everyone has headphones for the videos.

CK12 is not only helpful now, but will also be helpful throughout they year as we continue to review past concepts. With a lack of textbooks and resources CK12 is the perfect treasure trove of information that is easily accessible by students.

Throughout the summer, Team Dirt developed protocols that enable teachers to engage their students in a citizen science project, regardless of their school budget. We worked very hard to find materials that would effectively substitute their expensive, hard-to-get counterparts. We accomplished this goal, found materials that will work regardless of the budget, and even made instructional videos for teachers on how to set up the lab. This project must be introduced with some introduction as to why we care about growing bacterial and fungal colonies from the rhizospheres of invasive plants in the first place. This background can vary depending on the grade level in which the labs are being conducted as well as the specific focus the teacher would want to align the lab to in regards to the state standards. This project can be introduced with soil science, stewardship, plant reproduction with a focus on anatomical parts, ecosystems, nitrogen fixation, etc. The follow-up to the project would be an analysis of the data in relation to the focus in the beginning. For eighth grade, students will look at the nitrogen cycle and will research the history of nitrogen fixing plants that have typically been used in off-years of farming. This will introduce the lab and then students will determine if the weed they chose recruits enough bacterial diversity to be used in crop rotation.

Below are a few components that the success of this project depends upon:

Background Knowledge

Students come to us with a variety of backgrounds. I teach in an “urban” area compared to some schools in our district. While most of our students have seen a field of crops at some point, they have not experienced the process of farmers planting a field, watching it grow, and then watching it all be harvested in the fall. They have only heard about this cycle, but have never witnessed it first-hand. When explaining to students the need to replenish nutrients by planting a certain kind of plant, I really have to understand the background knowledge of my students in order for that to make any sense.

Materials

There are very specific materials needed for this project and even if a teacher chooses to use the most inexpensive items for this project, you still need basic equipment like flasks, petri dishes, scales, etc. This could be a time-consuming problem for educators without proper science equipment or without the support of their school. Equipment can be found or purchases if there is none, but this takes time and a lot of explaining as to why this equipment is so important for this project and students.

Student Buy-In

The whole point of citizen science is that the individual who is collecting the data WANTS to collect the data. When a teacher has a room full of kids who could not care less about nitrogen fixing bacteria and all that means for agriculture it makes it really difficult to “sell” why this project is worth their time. I am lucky to have 100 students who love to do science and are willing to get their hands dirty in order to investigate something. However, if this is not the case, this is going to be a huge problem in going through the procedures of this lab.

Administrative Buy-In

When observations are being mentioned on day one, the district wants you to teach in a certain way and in a certain order 48 hours before the kids start school, and your coaching team wants your standards to be vertically aligned with the other science teachers who you maybe plan with three times throughout the school year, it is hard to figure out where a project like this fits. As a teacher YOU know that this project is worthwhile, ties directly to the standards, reinforces standards taught in previous years as well as those taught in the next grade, and this project will ultimately prepare students for a career in microbiology. However, knowing this and proving it to administration are two very different things. Luckily I have phenomenal administration who support me regardless of the “crazy” ideas I come into their offices with, but I know this is not the case for every teacher. Administrative support is a huge component in whether this project will be successful or not.

Team Buy-In

Science teachers typically work with other science teachers in their building. By implementing this project, fellow science teachers who are perhaps not doing fun and fancy science may feel one of three ways: jealous, motivated, or indifferent. It is important to have the support of the science teachers who are educating the kids coming to you as well as the ones who will teach the kids you currently have. The more cohesive a science department can be, the better our students will be prepared for the STEM careers that await them. If the science department, especially the chair who will perhaps be ordering the supplies, is not on your side, there could be issues with the implementation of this project.

I am very fortunate that my summer internship directly aligns with standards in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Symbiosis in the Soil looks at the bacteria invasive plants recruit to their root systems. With this, students can analyze a number of things such as soil quality, soil type, soils by region, parts of a plant, parts of a root system, bacteria, bacterial properties, fungi, fungal properties, soil microbes vs. microbes in other places, symbiotic relationships, ecosystems, energy levels, soil stewardship etc. For math, students can practice with measurements and conversions throughout the process of the lab, percentage of coverage on the plates, and statistical analysis of the findings. For ELA, students can discuss the prefixes, suffixes and roots associated with key terms, students can conduct authentic research that they write about, and students can practice researching and citing sources using appropriate copyright laws. For social studies, students can research the history of pseudomonas fluorescens as well as the history of crop rotation in various regions in relationship to stewardship.

In my 8th grade classroom I am going to connect my project to symbiotic relationships in our ecosystems unit and then reconnect it to types of bacterial colonies when we discuss viruses. My students will discuss the benefits of symbiotic relationships and what that means for our environment. Stewardship plays a big role in this project because we are ultimately trying to find regional invasive species that could potentially replenish the bacteria in a fallow field in preparation for the next crop.