Category: Teacher Education

Lake Superior Celebration
6-8 pm, Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center

The community is invited to the Lake Superior Celebration at the Great Lakes Research Center. The event, hosted by the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative (LSSI), is FREE, family-friendly, and open to all.

SCHEDULE (202 GLRC)
6:30-7 pm Welcome & overview of Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative (LSSI)
LSSI video (7 min)
LSSI Teacher/Student Presentations
7:00-7:30 pm Wildflowers of the UP by Bob Wild, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park
7:30-8:00 pm Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative PBS video (20 min.)

View the PDF Flyer.

Learn more at the Western Upper Peninsula Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education (WUP Center).

Earth Day at Michigan Tech Today

A new PBS video will be aired at the celebration. It features local participants in the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative. The event is free and open to the public and all are welcome. The Lake Superior Celebration is sponsored by the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative and Michigan Tech’s Western UP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education.

Earth Day was started in 1970 to help raise awareness, channeling the energy of the anti-Vietnam War protest movement to help bring environmental issues to the forefront. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin was inspired to establish Earth Day after witnessing the aftermath of the massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, in 1969.

Read more at Tech Today, by Erika Vichcales.

Joan Chadde was in Detroit recently leading field trips to the forests of Belle Isle for 350 Detroit students (grades 5-9) from nine Detroit Public Schools as part of the Urban Forest Stewardship Project and a forestry teacher workshop. Both were funded with an $80,000 grant from the US Forest Service to provide teacher training and increase middle/high schools students’ knowledge, stewardship and interest in natural resource careers.

From Tech Today.

EPDIS Engineering, Life Sciences and NGSS
Summer 2014
July 14-25, 2014
August 4-6, 2014
Engineering Applications in Biological Sciences

Deadline: May 2, 2014

There is an opportunity for people who have participated in a Michigan Department of Education grant previously to join the cohort of 19 teachers who are participants in the grant.

The Educators’ Professional Development Institute Series (EPDIS): Engineering, Life Sciences and NGSS is focused to support and deepen teacher content knowledge and content pedagogy of practicing teachers.

View the Application, Brochure, Schedule, and Contact information at the Current Institute page of Teacher Professional Development in the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences.

Engineering Applications in Biological Sciences

Participant guidelines:

1. Michigan teacher certificate, grades 5-12
2. Previous participation in a Michigan Department of Education Improving Teacher Quality Grant project awarded to Michigan Tech

Benefits to joining the cohort of teachers in the current EPDIS:

1. Books, supplies, housing, meals and tuition funded plus a stipend for the 4 graduate credit ENG5400 summer institute July 1425,
   2014.
2. Books, supplies, housing, meals and tuition funded plus a stipend for the 1 graduate credit 3DPrinter Workshop tentatively August 46,
   2014.
   (participants will assemble and learn to operate an open source Delta style 3D Printer to bring back to use in your classroom.)

Roles and responsibilities of the grant participants:

1. Complete ENG 5400 course & 3DPrinter workshop.
2. Submit all pre/post evaluations for yourself and evidence of project related student learning.
3. Assist in all components of program evaluation and assessment, including SAMPI Classroom Observations.

The Western UP Center has posted results and photos of the 2014 science fair held at the Memorial Union on March 25, 2014.

View Results, Project Pictures, Festival Pictures, and News

Science comes to life
Fourth- through eighth-graders attend science fair

The 15th annual fair, held at Michigan Technological University, drew 230 fourth- through eighth-graders from across the western Upper Peninsula.

Houghton Middle School students Jonnelle Yankovich and Daryn DuPont measured whether Walmart or Prince rabbit feed would make DuPont’s rabbits gain the most weight. Their hypothesis of Walmart was proven incorrect.

“We thought it would be a good idea to do a project with rabbits, because it was something that we figured a lot of other people wouldn’t be doing,” Yankovich said.

The students got extra credit for their science class, and had fun besides.

“I thought it was cool,” DuPont said of the science fair. “It was exciting.”

Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Garrett Neese.

Copper Country students show off their work at regional science fair

Chadde says the Science and Engineering Festival is a way to reward the students for their hard work on their science fair projects and it gives them some fun things to do while they wait for their project to be judged. She added that more than 50 Michigan Tech students from 14 different organizations help make this festival interesting for the children.

“They’re wonderful role models for the younger students that are here. And we help them, items of supplies and organization. But they do it so it’s really a fun event and you can see it’s packed. Parents love it and the kids love it,” she said.

Read more and watch the video at ABC 10 WBUP WBKP, by Mike Hoey.

2014 Western UP Science Fair
Grades 4-8

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Michigan Tech Memorial Union Ballroom
5-6pm Science Fair open to the public
6-8:30pm- Judging of projects.
4:30-7:30pm – Science festival in MUB Commons

The Western UP Science Fair is sponsored by the Western UP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education, Michigan Tech Chapter of Omega Chi Epsilon Chemical Engineering Honor Society, Michigan Tech Chapter of American Society of Engineering Education and the Carnegie Museum.

15th Annual Western UP Science Fair and Festival Tuesday

Students from sixteen schools in Houghton, Baraga, Ontonagon and Gogebic Counties will participate: Chassell Elementary, CLK Elementary, E.B. Holman School, Houghton Elementary, Barkell Elementary, Lake Linden-Hubbell Elementary, Arvon Township School, Houghton Middle School, Lake Linden-Hubbell Middle School, LL Wright Middle School, L’Anse Middle School, Washington Middle School, Hancock Middle School, Ewen Trout Creek School, Northwoods Christian School and Watersmeet School.

Read more at Tech Today.

Spring Break Camp for Grades 1-6, April 1-3
The camp will be held at the Great Lakes Research Center, Tuesday-Thursday, April 1-3.
REGISTER ONLINE

Grades 1-3: Investigate Your World!
Grades 4-6: A Taste of Tech!

Sponsored by the Western UP Center for Science, Math and Environmental Education and Michigan Tech.

Read more at Tech Today.

Forest Ecology and Resources
June 23-27, 2014
Deadline: May 5, 2014

Global Change
July 7 – 11, 2014
Deadline: May 5, 2014

Teachers are invited to apply to these summer institutes, which are part of Teacher Professional Development in the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences.

Both Forest Ecology and Resources (Urban Forest Ecology at Belle Isle) and Global Change are worth two college credits. They are coordinated by the Western U. P. Center for Science, Math & Environmental Education.

The Western UP Center for Science, Math and Environmental Education, based at Michigan Tech, is offering a four-week class for students in grades 9-12, covering the fundamentals of computer programming for Android mobile devices, graphic design and mobile app development. Students will work in small teams to create a working Android mobile app for a community or school organization.

The class will be taught at Houghton High School, Room 124, from 3:45-5:30 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays, starting March 17. Classes will not meet during the public schools’ spring break. There will be one class on Wednesday, April 9.

The class is free and no experience is required. It will be taught by Chad Norman, a science and technology outreach specialist with Michigan Tech’s Center for Science and Environmental Outreach.

More information is available at 7-3341.

From Tech Today.

Michigan Tech Students Head to Detroit for Alternative Spring Break

Students from the Michigan Tech National Society of Black Engineers will visit seven middle and high schools in Detroit to promote college and engineering. In the evenings, they will conduct Family Engineering Night events at three K-8 schools. NSBE’s Alternative Spring Break is conducted in collaboration with the Detroit Public Schools Office of Science and Detroit Math & Science Center, and funded in part, with a grant from John Deere.

Read more at the WUP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education.

WXYZ Channel 7 news in Detroit aired a feature story about Michigan Tech student members of the campus chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, who are spending their spring break working to motivate middle and high school students in Detroit schools to see college in their futures and to study science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

From Tech Today.

The Family Engineering Activities and Presenters were posted by TechAlum Newsletter. The events took place March 11-14, 2014.

Read more at TechAlum Newsletter, by Dennis Walikainen.

World Water Day is observed on March 22. This year, Michigan Tech is hosting a week of events, March 20, 26-27, 2014. This year’s theme is “Water and Energy.”

Events include a film, lecture, poster session, panel discussion, and art exhibit, featuring the topic of gas from shale hydrofraccing.

Learn more at the Michigan Tech Center for Water and Society.

World Water Day Sponsors:

Center for Water and Society (CWS), Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative (LSSI), Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (KUUF), Keweenaw Land Trust (KLT), Sustainable Futures Institute (SFI), Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC, Visual and Performing Arts (MTU), Finlandia University. Partial funding provided by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) through a grant from the Johnson Family Foundation for a Let’s Talk About Water event.