Julia Uribe

CA

Ecosystem Explorations: Connecting an ecology field experience to the classroom

Sat, Feb 09, 2019 2:43 AM
Ecosystem Explorations

The article depicts the importance of front-loading information to students before a fieldtrip so that they can benefit more from the experience. In this particular fieldtrip the students went to The Sandia Mountain Natural History Center (SMNHC) in New Mexico, where the students could explore the native environment while learning basic ecological concepts. In order for the students to truly benefit educationally from the trip they were introduced to lessons prior to the trip to help students build a conceptual framework before they participated in the field experience. This was done so that students could better integrate their field discoveries while at the mountain preserve into their own understandings. The article also illustrates how activities after the fieldtrip are also important in creating a strong conceptual framework. What I like about this article and what I believe teachers could find beneficial are the activities that the article shares. What I found helpful was the reasoning behind each activity and the sequence which the activities were completed. Each activity is constructed upon their previous understanding, so each is activity is a natural progression which I believe helps the students build a solid conceptual framework.

There Go Those Kids In Nature

Sat, Feb 09, 2019 2:06 AM
There Go Those Kids In Nature

In this article an ecological restoration project which ran from September 2001 to May 2002 in Santa Barbara, California is discussed. The program called Kids in Nature involved 235 students from 7 elementary schools in 3 districts, they were asked to participate in an authentic science project where they were in charge of tending their own 25 m2 plot of land on Sedgwick Reserve. Each group of five to seven children were tasked in choosing which native plants grew best in the location and climate of the land plot assigned to them. They had to tend to plan the seeds of the plants chosen, until the plants became self-sustaining, which was a long-term process. What teachers can find beneficial from this article is that the students’ involvement in the restoration project derived from a field trip to the reserve. The students on the field trip learned about the restoration efforts of ecologist of native plants and why it was important to restore native plants back into their habitats. The article can serve as an example of how to incorporate a fieldtrip experience into the classroom, since the article gave examples of how students that went on the fieldtrip but were not part of the restoration project still “restored” plants virtually, which gave them the personal experience of being a restoration ecologist. Teachers could benefit from applying the large restoration to a small-scale garden restoration that can become an engaging lesson on native plants through an authentic science experience.

Integrating the Nature of Science

Sat, Feb 09, 2019 1:23 AM
Integrating the Nature of Science

In this article a lesson in interdependent and ecosystems is created for third grade students by a third-grade teacher and education professor. The lesson is based on “Variation in Population” Environments Unit (FOSS 2013) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) performance expectation 3-LS4-3: Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all (NGSS Lead States 2013). What I like about this article is that it gives educators an example of how to engage students in the scientific process, by encouraging students to think as scientists. They emphasize that scientist ask questions about the world around them, use models to understand things, work in teams, they look for patterns and collect data by observing and counting. The article also shows how the students went through the scientific process step by step with the help of the teacher. They were asked a question, they were given a model that they could use to help understand the questions and information found through observations. It is a very detailed article of how through a scaffold engaging lesson students can become scientists and be excited to learn about science. Teachers would find the article helpful because it is detailed on how the teacher scaffold the lesson, what worked, what didn’t work, what they had adjust and how they assessed the students understanding.