EARTH Activities

In August 2010, a group of teachers attended a six-day Summer Institute at Nahant Marsh Education Center to:

• Upgrade content knowledge
• Conduct inquiry-driven problem solving scenarios
• Integrate technology, differentiated instruction, and writing into science teaching
• Use manipulative science materials
• Improve science teaching skills by grade level and across science strands.

The Summer Institute engaged teachers in hands-on science inquiry experiments using:

• Chemistry (testing water for nitrates, nitrites, phosphates, oxygen and chloride)
• Biology (the natural life cycles of the water elements, identifying bugs and macro invertebrates, identifying plants)
• Physics and physical science (calculating depth, volume, and water flow rates)
• Math/science/computer/statistics (identifying the location of plant and animal species using GIS and GPS, calculating averages, distribution, diversity)
• Ecology (wetlands, prairie, bottomland forests)
• Environmental science (invasive species, habitat degradation, pollution)