This is my third academic year here, at a DLI school, but I was teaching in Spain for 33 years before arriving to Utah. In these 3 years I have had the opportunity to discover how sweet and endearing children in Utah. With them we have won international awards in science, we have traveled to incredible places in Utah, and they even nominated me last year as a Science Professor for 6th. They have taught me a lot about how Americans are in general, and about this particular state, Utah, too
They have made me love this nation, and although I am from Spanish, I am proud to have the opportunity to learn with them, to teach with them, to enjoy with them.
The best way I can think of to give them back all the good that they have given me is to improve their possibilities and resources in my classes. It is for them that I present this project, because they deserve it without a doubt
My Project
The challenge of implementing curriculum in the new science standards at 6th involves supporting teaching with close and affordable phenomena for children. That is, bringing nature to the class. With this we support the idea that the school and reality are part of the same, and they are not separate entities
My intention this year is to continue increasing our collection of objects in class, our Class Museum, but mainly to stimulate the scientific use of the items.
In that collection we have bird bones found in backyards, feathers, minerals, rocks, Bear Lake shells, mosses, lichens, leaves and fruits of pines, firs and sequoias, egagropilas, nests of wasps, hornets and pieces of honeycomb, coins, collectibles ... Even small ecosystems like an aquarium, a terrarium for amphibians and an ecosphere, carnivorous plants, etc. Everything is a real treasure that not only serves for children to observe with passion, but it teaches that life is full of tiny things that can turn into treasures of observation, that every detail of our world keeps secrets, and everything together they are an excellent resource to improve the level of the class. Knowing in order to protect.
Although we are already having storage problems (we lack adequate cabinets, shelves and boxes), my students and I think it is better to provide tools that help cover the main function of the Museum: observation. Since we already have microscopes (some of them), we have proposed to get powerful pocket magnifiers (one for each student) and a set of stereomicroscopes (one for each group). As a biologist, I think stereomicroscopes are more useful than microscopes at this age, because they do not distort the observed object so much. In fact, they continue to see it under the lens, but at a larger size.
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