Wachstumshormone

Jan

11

Preparing Teachers for Environmental Education

Filed Under Perspectives, Resources, Science, Social studies | Leave a Comment

by Louise Conn Fleming

Abstract: Our teacher education team at our university teaches the junior year methods and assessment to preservice middle grades teachers. Starting Spring 2003 we began using “The Projects” as part of methods instruction. In this paper I will review what educators say about how middle grades students should be taught, why environmental education meets those criteria, explain our program, and share our results.

Preparing Teachers for Environmental Education

Most adults in the U.S. have grown up out of touch with the environment, and it appears that the generation in schools today is growing up that way as well. The middle grades, grades four or five to eight or nine, are a time when children are beginning to see themselves as they relate to their world at large. This is a crucial time to focus their attention on how their actions have an impact on other inhabitants of our planet. However, most middle grades teachers, having grown up without experiences in nature, lack both the understanding and enjoyment of the environment and the knowledge of why or how to teach about it. Read more

Dec

17

Grades K-2: Sustainability

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“The frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives” -  Indian Proverb

Science – How do Plants Help Soil?
Take two large baking pans (about 12 x 6 in.).  Place bare soil in one pan and line the other with grass sod.  Place the pans at a 20 – 25 degree slant in front of the class.  Have a hand-held hair dryer and a watering can or spray bottle ready.  First take the hair dryer and blow air from the hair dryer on the dry soil and then on the soil with grass.  Discuss the reasons for what is happening.  Using the same pans, pour/spray  water on the soil and grass.  Have students look for differences in the two pans.  Ask what would happen if it rained hard all day on the two pans.  again, discuss the reasons for what is happening.  Do other types of plants help soil? Is it important to have plants growing on soil.

Have the class walk around the school grounds looking for evidence of erosion and plant soil relationships.  What happens outside in areas where there is dirt with no plants growing on it?  Where does the dirt go when it is carried away by wind and water?  LIFE

Mathematics (& Science) – Sun Heat and Drink
You need several, clean, empty pop cans, 5-6 kitchen thermometers, some aluminum foil and a few different colored acrylic paints.  Paint the cans a variety of colors (black, white, red, green . . .).  Leave one unpainted and cover another with aluminum foil.  Fill the cans with equal amounts of cold water and set in full sun, either in a window, or in a sheltered place outside.  Take the temperature of water and record on a chart as a class, or individually.  Read more