14 middle and high school teachers from across Michigan are on the Michigan Tech campus this week as part of the five-day “Engaging Students in Authentic Science Research Teacher Institute,” running through Friday.
The institute is designed to guide teachers in gaining the skills to engage their students in designing and conducting original research, rather than merely conducting “cookbook experiments.” Teachers will learn research design methods and procedures and participate in a variety of research field and lab studies led by Michigan Tech faculty and graduate students. Some of the sessions include: physics of atmospheric science, chromatography, materials science, transportation surveys, insect inventories, aquatic invasive species and visiting local sites to see the types of research local students are conducting. The institute is co-led by Joan Chadde, director of the Center for Science & Environmental Outreach at Michigan Tech and Lauri Davis, Houghton High School science teacher and science department chair. The institute is partially funded by a National Science Foundation grant (Evan Kane, Principal Investigator).
From Tech Today, by Joan Chadde.
Teachers attend Teacher Institute to better teach students
“Authentic research is actually kids starting at ground zero,” says high school teacher and Institute Developer Lauri Davis. “They develop a question to answer, they develop the procedure to do the experiment, to answer the question, to collect the data, they analyze the data and then they present the data in numerous different forms.”
Read more and watch the video at Upper Michigan’s Source, by Aleah Hordges.