| Summer Science and Math at the U of MN | |
| Investigating Environment Soil, Water and Climate to Understand Concepts of Science | |
For teachers of grades: 1-6
This is a 10-day summer course with follow-up meetings to support educators in the academic year. It will enhance the MN Science Standards ‘History and Nature of Science’ knowledge of elementary teachers using the theme ‘Environment, Soil, Water and Climate’ to provide the context and content for concept exploration and relevance of science. In this workshop teachers will conduct hands-on, active learning experiments and observations involving field and laboratory data gathering, interpreting and summarizing about environment, soil, water and climate that address benchmarks within the strand. This workshop will also help increase teacher comfort level of doing science in the classroom and using science as the media for reading and mathematics in an active learning mode. The Prairie Ecology Bus will be used as a mobile laboratory to explore soils, water, and biomes of S.W. Minnesota in addition to field explorations at the S.W. Research and Outreach Center. They also will be introduced to grade appropriate science literature and to local science resource citizens, able and willing to assist them in the teaching of science. Teachers will work in small groups to design and micro-teach two lessons during the workshop. They will develop one lesson independently with support of workshop facilitators. “Investigating Environment Soil, Water and Climate to Understand Concepts of Science” will help to increase interest in and the amount of classroom time devoted to science topics by participating teachers while working towards the goal of improving student interest in science and performance on science standards-based assessments. This workshop is designed with input from elementary teachers and their needs and concerns for preparing students for the upcoming science assessments. User friendly and fun are the themes for this workshop!
Course Dates: TBA
Location: University of Minnesota Southwest Research and Outreach Center, Lamberton, MN
Instructors: Dr. Vern Cardwell (Distinguished Teaching Professor, Agronomy and Plant Genetics, U of M), Dr. JoAnne Buggey (Retired Professor U of M College of Education and Human Development), Susan Anderson (K-12 Life and Natural Sciences Education Specialist, U of M), Chrystal Dunker (Executive Director and Instructor, Prairie Ecology Bus Center).
Materials, lunches, mileage, stipends and assistance with graduate credits will be covered by a grant from the MN Higher Education Services Office, Improving Teacher Quality Program.
To apply, go to http://swroc.coafes.umn.edu/