Team Teaching with Mother Nature! An Environmental Education Workshop for Teachers
By: Karen Christenson, Science Inquiry Literacy, St. Paul Public Schools
Thanks to a teacher scholarship from MAEE, I was able to attend a wonderful workshop at the Cannon River STEM School in Faribault on Friday. Three facilitators from the Jeffers Foundation demonstrated how K-8 teachers can “Team Teach with Mother Nature.” We were able to dive into outdoor experiments on how animals adapt in the winter, make qualitative and quantitative observations and design testable science questions, incorporate math skills by measuring snowfall and temperature, and more.
The three facilitators provided an array of lessons from science, ELA, math, and art. They shared dozens of excellent books to show how to tie in good quality literature. They also brought a wealth of free resources to distribute to teachers: a hand lens, outdoor whistle, animal track bandanna, a set of EcoTime activity cards, measuring tape, a thermometer, and a full set of bound journals for students to collect and record outdoor data.
Thank you, MAEE, for your generous sponsorship to cover the cost of my substitute teacher. The workshop was “tree-rific!”