Green Eggs & Sand - Part VIII

            The next morning we are transported to the Cape May County Mosquito Control building for the day’s activities (There is a wedding scheduled at the Wetlands Institute which has preempted our workshops).  Over a simple breakfast of coffee, bagels, and cornflakes I chat with Janet Mead, a 7th grade teacher at Williamstown (NJ) Middle School.
            “I want my students to know how horseshoe crabs are related to their daily lives – that there are medicines derived from these creatures that affect their lives.  I want them to get a sense of pride knowing something that no one else knows.  I also want my students to be scientifically literate.  When reading something in the popular press I want them to be able to relate it to something else.  I want them to make connections – to open their eyes to something else.”
            Janet is absolute when she points out that it is always a challenge, particularly with a large group of students, to get them involved in hands-on activities or to even get them out of the school building and into the real world where science takes place.  “Real science is not book learning…it’s doing science.  We’re fortunate at our school – we have a walking path, a pond, a worm bin, and a butterfly garden – so students can get some first-hand experiences.”
            Janice, like so many other teachers, feels the need to connect her students to something that matters.  She is concerned with the over-emphasis on standardized tests that reward memorization at the expense of authentic learning in authentic situations.  She celebrates the GE&S program as “…a way for [teachers] to promote [thinking] skills in a real-world problem-solving way.”  For Janice, it’s a matter of making connections.  She believes kids need to see the relationships that exist between ecology, conservation, cells and a dozen other elements in order to be scientifically literate citizens.  “This is a program we can offer kids that moves beyond classroom learning into an application of that learning in the real world.  I’m excited about those possibilities.”