Wells Cares
A collaboration with Mary E. Wells Junior High School, Southbridge, Massachusetts.
Overview
The EcoTarium is working with Wells Junior High on a new Partnership called WELLS CARES (Wells Educates For Lifelong Learning Students: Community, Achievement, Respect for Environment).
Summary
The primary goal of the project is to support a team of 10-12 Wells Junior High School seventh grade teachers as they work to develop interdisciplinary curriculum units. These units focus on the local environment to enhance students' understanding of and respect for the local physical environment while providing them with opportunities for community service. Professional development workshops focus on environmental science topics which are in alignment with the State Science & Technology Curriculum Frameworks and will highlight cross-disciplinary connections. This collaboration's workshops provide teachers first-hand opportunities to experience inquiry-based lessons which integrate computer technologies (Clarisworks, e-mail, and the WWW) into classroom teaching and learning.
Workshops provided by EcoTarium staff model interdisciplinary, inquiry-based, learner-driven lessons based in the Massachusetts Science & Technology Curriculum Frameworks themes of Characteristics of Organisms; Diversity and Adaptation of Organisms; and Ecosystems and Organisms. A core theme of the workshops is the use of the local landscape as a resource for teaching and as a learning laboratory for student explorations of the above themes. A parallel focus of the workshops is the integration of computer technologies into these lessons.
During the workshops teachers isparticipate in model investigations which take the learner through a guided, inquiry-based investigation which uses Clarisworks, e-mail, and/or the World Wide Web to support student learning and exploration. They are gaining hands-on working time in which to explore the various computer technologies within the context of an investigation or lesson.
In the third year of this collaboration, the teachers have chosen to take the animal and ecosystem focus that they have used in past years and add a special local focus for this year. The students (seventh graders) will be studying a potential vernal pool near the school.
Outcomes
During the course of the workshops, teachers will work in teams to develop interdisciplinary curriculum units which they will implement and revise as the year progresses. These lessons will be based in the themes explored during the workshops and are expected to incorporate both the teaching approaches and computer technologies explored during the workshops. At the final workshop participants will showcase their lesson units and report on and discuss their experiences both with the workshop series and the implementation of the lesson units in the classroom.
See the Massachusetts DOE profile for the Southbridge Public Schools or Wells Junior High