Teaching Science: Developing Environmental Stewardship

Our school community is part of the Sudbury-Assabet-Concord Watershed. SuAsCo is a community alliance working towards sustainable economic and environmental well being of the area. Last night, I met with a group of teachers, naturalist educators, and curriculum leaders from the area to talk about student-stewardship as part of the SuAsCo River Network, a network formed to support and connect educators and students who live in this watershed area.

As a newcomer to the group, I was delighted to hear so many relevant and meaningful science education ideas, ideas that relate well to standards.  I was also happy to have a group of like-minded educators to study and work with as we facilitate engaging student learning events, events that will build students' interest, investment, and interaction in their local environment.

This chart does a nice job of putting our main practices for teaching
and learning on one page. 

The idea share focused on the Next Generation Science Standards' Technology and Engineering Practice Standards. There was agreement that to find time for good science teaching we will need to look at ways to create interdisciplinary learning experiences for students. This morning I found that The California State University website has created a good website related to this. I will revisit this website as I continue to craft interdisciplinary units.

For starters, I'll integrate the great ideas I received from the Hudson, Marlborough, Lincoln, Concord, Acton, Sudbury, Weston, and Framingham educators last night in upcoming environmental exploration activities.

Get Outside
We need to get outside to study more. I had hoped to do that every Thursday, and then to catch up on math study, I put that on hold. We will get outside more.

Choose a Location to Study
The group affirmed that the small brook near our school is a great place to study. When it comes to rivers, the small brooks, creeks, and pools of water nearby matter a lot with regard to a river's health.

Tools for Study
I need to learn more about the tools for studying water flow, water quality, temperature, and other metrics that help children analyze, communicate, and make decisions about an environment's health and welfare. Drumlin Farm naturalists are there to help.

Standards and Process
As I create these learning experiences, I'll keep a close eye on the standards students have to master before the spring Science test. I'll also read about the many processes possible for such study such as processes related to citizen science, sharpening observation skills, naturalist journals, riverpals, map study and more.

Collaboration
I'll share this information with curriculum leaders, colleagues, and our system's Green Team as I'm sure they will have a lot of information to share as well. The school's Green Team is growing greater awareness and knowledge of the environment, and last night's meeting affirmed that effort and also prompted me to think about where and how we create and share the school's environmental story. One idea was to create a place for a school participatory field guide where all students contribute in an ongoing fashion.

Field Trips and Grants
We also discussed field experiences away from our schools, experiences such as last year's River Days event which was funded by an Audubon grant.