Andrew

I believe that all three of these teaching practices are important. The second, framing the work globally and locally, is essential. At my school, we have established or restored sustainable wildlife habitat around our campus. This transformation is giving students the opportunity to study animals and insect up close and have a hand in their ensuring the survival and conservation of these habitats and creatures. We've focused our efforts on Monarch Butterflies and Ladybugs, establishing two large gardens specifically designed to be habitat for them. Through the efforts of our students, we were able to get these areas certified as Schoolyard Habitats and Monarch Waystations. We've also raised a couple dozen or so Monarchs and Black Swallowtails and released them into the habitats. This allows students the opportunity to watch the lifecycle process up close and learn how to care for the creatures need (food, water, shelter, etc.). Throughout the project, students learned the larger global connection as well.

I teach environmental education at an elementary school through an afterschool program though I do work with teachers to begin incorporating outdoor education into the classroom. We've achieved numberous certifciations through our schoolyard habitat program and sustainability initiatives. My approach has been traditional teaching of inforamtion with "hands-on" work. This re-thinking to the way of inquiry is a new adventure for me. We have an upcoming project of growing plants in hydroponic bays. We will record data on growth and will monitoring nutrient and pH levels and record how that affects growth. I can see how using a confirmation inquiry level would best benefit our students invovled as they would new to data collection and we would be teaching them this skill. Hopefully, as this is a several month project, we would be able to transition to a more structured level, allowing students to make thier own predictions in the outcome of adjusting pH levels and how varying water quality affects plant growth.