GCE Schoolyard Program
Overview
Schoolyard LTER field sampling
(photo courtesy of Halley Page)
The GCE Schoolyard program provides critical in-service training for K-12 educators in field ecology, immersing science and math teachers in hands-on research activities in the field to enable them to bring lessons and actual research data back to the classroom. From 2000 to 2008, over 50 teachers participated in one or more sessions of the GCE S-LTER program, representing 113 teacher slots and a collective impact on 11,278 students. Teachers split their time between doing research alongside GCE scientists and graduate students and discussing ways to implement the information in their classrooms.
A hallmark of the program is its emphasis on continued participation of teachers. Long-term teacher participation allows mentoring on multiple levels and provides teachers with a sense of continuity within the research process and a depth of understanding about those processes that can never be replicated in textbooks. Our program, built around long-term contact between teachers and researchers, is obtaining lasting results.
One teacher wrote:
“I need this every summer to show myself and my kids that I am a scientist. Only now do I feel like I can call myself a science teacher. It used to be so much work to teach – especially using inquiry. But now, after this, it makes so much sense. Now, I have an easy job and am a better teacher. My kids believe me because they see the pictures of me really doing what it is I’m teaching them. It’s even now a rare thing to have to write any kid up for bad behavior. They don’t want to miss class! I guess what I’m saying is that I have been empowered personally and professionally because I now know what science really looks like. I’ve done it. I think about it all very differently. I am a scientist!”
Schoolyard 2008-2009
In 2008, one of our longest running participants (Ken Leach) was selected by the Siemens Company as one of 20 top science teachers in the country. Through him, Dr. Patricia Hembree, who ran the Schoolyard program, was also recognized as an outstanding mentor. Another long-running participant (Halley Page) was recognized as the 2008 Elementary Science Teacher of the Year by the Georgia Science Teachers Association. In 2009 she was further honored and named one of two teachers in the state and 108 in the nation who will receive the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching at a special White House ceremony.
Schoolyard participants installing wells on
Cabretta Island.
(photo by Cheri Singleton)
GCE is also a partner in the Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) Coastal trends project, which seeks to increase literacy in ocean science with a focus on understanding coastal trends through partnerships among scientists, educators and the general public. In 2009 J. Shalack gave a presentation at the COSEE Coastal Legacy Workshop.
In 2009, we expanded the Schoolyard program in partnership with the “Science Education and Applied Research in Coastal Habitats”, or “SEARCH” program, which was administered by the UGA Marine Extension Service. The SEARCH program was directed by Dr. Joseph Riley, Professor Emeritus in the Science Education Dept. in the UGA College of Education, and Mr. Bob Williams, Associate Director for Marine Education in the UGA Marine Extension Service, with additional support from Dr. Steve Oliver, who is also a Professor of Science Education at UGA. LTER activities were directed by Dr. Dale Bishop of the GCE project. It provided participants with an intensive week of coastal ecological study at the Marine Education Center and Aquarium facilities on Skidaway Island, GA prior to their GCE experience on Sapelo Island.
One of the 2009 participants wrote to say:
“Thank you” for the amazing time I had during the SEARCH program. The lectures, labs, and research involvement were incredibly fulfilling and life changing. The experience has forever altered the way I plan to teach in the classroom.”
To learn more about this summer's activities, please visit the SEARCH program Wiki created by several of the participants for photos and articles detailing their memories from this summer's GCE-LTER Marine Schoolyard program.
