Category: Teacher Education

The Western UP Center for Science, Math and Environmental Education and Horizons High School will partner to offer youth-at-risk an introduction to how technology is used in a variety of jobs/careers so that they can prepare to enroll in a community college or university after high school. Michigan Tech students will serve as role models and will share their passion and recently developed technology skills with high school students. The purpose of this class is to increase Horizons High School students’ interest, confidence and ability in pursuing a career in the technology field.

This job skills class will take place every other Friday afternoon for eight sessions. The class will run from mid-January through mid- April, taught by Chad Norman, science and technology specialist, Center for Science and Environmental Outreach. The Horizons class is funded with a grant from the Youth Advisory Council of the Keweenaw Community Foundation.

From Tech Today.

Center for Science and Environmental Outreach
Western Upper Peninsula Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education
Youth Advisory Council
Joan Chadde, jchadde@mtu.edu
K-12 Education & Outreach Program Coordinator

Erica Thompson was recently hired to be the Center for Science and Environmental Outreach’s new outdoor science field trip coordinator. Erica has been in the local area for the past two years and has met many local students through her work as a substitute teacher. Erica hails from Alaska—she has her 100-ton captain’s license and comes from a fishing family. The Center will tap her experience organizing big events which she mastered while working as an outreach coordinator and event planner for the Copper River/Prince William Sound Marketing Association. She also has several years or experience as a science educator for the Prince William Sound Science Center. In addition to leading the outdoor science field trips, Erica will teach after school classes, assist with family science night and any number of exciting education programs!

From Tech Today.

Center for Science and Environmental Outreach
Joan Chadde, jchadde@mtu.edu
K-12 Education & Outreach Program Coordinator

The Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences will host science education faculty candidate Amy Lark from 11:05 to 11:55 a.m., Friday, Jan. 24, in Meese 109. Lark will give a research presentation, “Teaching and learning with Avida-ED: A model for the reform-based integration of science content and practice.”

Lark is a PhD candidate in science education at Michigan State University. She also holds an MS in Zoology from Michigan State. Her research focuses on how using research-based technologies influence teaching and learning of the nature and practices of science, and how these in turn are related to conceptual understanding and overall scientific literacy.

For more information, contact Shari Stockero at stockero@mtu.edu.

Two six-week sessions of After School Classes for students in grades one to three will be held at Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center.

4 to 5:30 p.m., Mondays–Wild About Wildlife (Grades 1 to 3)–Jan. 27 to March 3.
4 to 5:30 p.m., Thursdays–Wild About Winter (Grades1 to 3)–Jan. 30 to March 6.

Open to 20 students per session. Register ASAP, accepted on first come basis. Cost: $75 per session or $150 for both sessions

Mondays: Wild About Wildlife
Hands-on lessons on wildlife habitat, bird adaptations, track and scat identification, owl pellets, food webs, and a closer look at insects—oh, my!
Instructor: Gwen Jacobsen, Forestry MS Student, Peace Corps International.

Thursdays: Wild About Winter
Design a package to keep an ice cube frozen indoors, inspect snowflake crystals, dig a snow pit, build a tiny quinzee, design a snowshoe, and more!
Instructors: Betsy Tahtinen, Forestry MS Graduate, and Erica Thompson, Western UP Center staff.

Transportation: Houghton school bus will transport students to GLRC by 4 p.m. (Optional)
Register online: Registration Form. Pay via credit card by calling cashier: 487-2247 (your child is not registered until payment is received). Please call the center at 487-3341 for any questions you may have.

From Tech Today.

Joan Chadde is the K-12 Education & Outreach Program Coordinator
Center for Science and Environmental Outreach

The Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences will host science education faculty candidate Sheron Mark from 11:05 to 11:55 a.m., Monday, Jan. 20, in Meese 109. Mark will give a research presentation, “A Psychology of Working Perspective on the Development of Science Career Interests amongst Diverse Students.”

Mark holds a PhD in Philosophy, Curriculum and Instruction—Science Education from Boston College, along with an MS in Chemical Engineering from Syracuse University. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in STEM Education at the Center for Urban Resilience, Loyola Marymount University. Her research interests include STEM career development, the use of geospatial technology and informal science learning.

For more information, contact Shari Stockero at stockero@mtu.edu.

From Tech Today.

Totally Technology!

6-week session of After School Classes for students in grades 4-8 at Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center.

4:00-5:30 PM, Mondays (Grades 4-5) ~ Jan. 27-Mar. 3
4:00-5:30 PM, Thursdays (Grades 6-8) ~ Jan. 30-Mar. 6

Open to only 12 students per class!  Register ASAP, accepted on first come basis.

– Develop custom Android smartphone games while learning the basics of Java programming.  Download finished games to any Android smartphone or tablet.

– Explore electrical engineering using Sew Electric! – sewing and circuitry combined to create light-up stuffed animals.

– Design objects on a 3D printer!

No previous experience necessary.

Cost: $85 (Includes all materials)

Register online:

https://sites.google.com/a/mtu.edu/center-for-science-and-environmental-outreach/

Pay via credit card: 487-2247

Questions? Please call the Center at 487-3341

2014-After-School-Technology-Gr.4-7

NOTE: The correct web link for the Western UP Center For Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education is http://wupcenter.mtu.edu/.

Community Foundation looking for grant ideas

The Keweenaw Community Foundation is beginning its latest funding cycle for grants to help children in sixth through 12th grades. For this period, there is $13,170 available, with as much as $3,000 per applicant.

The KCF received a $500,000 endowment from the Kellogg Foundation in the mid-1990s specifically for youth needs, said Joan Chadde, co-coordinator of the KCF’s Youth Advisory Council. The interest on the endowment has been used for grants.

The KCF is always looking for more middle- and high-school students to join, Chadde said.

Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Garrett Neese.

The Center for Science and Environmental Outreach staff (Joan Chadde, Lloyd Wescoat, Chad Norman) and two Michigan Tech students, Danielle Ahrens (Bio Med) and Megan Baker (SFRES), traveled to Wakefield to conduct a Family Science and Engineering Night event attended by 90 parents and K-6 students at Wakefield-Marinesco Elementary School on Nov. 19. The school said, “It was the best family science night ever!”

From Tech Today.

Michigan Tech Students to Lead Family Engineering Night at Grand Rapids

Michigan Tech students will lead a Family Engineering Night on Monday, Nov. 25, at Harrison Park School in Grand Rapids. Nearly 300 K-8 students and their parents are expected to attend.

The Michigan Tech students are part of the University’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers student chapter.

Read more at Tech Today.

The Western U.P. Center for Science, Math & Environmental Education and Michigan Tech University partners to
offer family science & engineering nights for elementary schools in Houghton, Baraga, Gogebic & Ontonagon Counties in Fall 2013-Spring 2014.

$1.45 Million Study to Address the Northbound Flow of Airborne Toxins

Pollutants like these find their way north via a complex web of human and natural systems. Now, a team led by Michigan Technological University’s Judith Perlinger is working on a three-year project to better understand how those systems interact and find ways to address the problem.

The project also has an educational component. The team is teaching a web-based course this spring called Communicating Wicked Environmental Problems. “’Wicked’ has a special meaning,” Perlinger said. “It refers to very complex problems that have a high degree of scientific uncertainty, can be very contentious, and lack a set of solutions that will not be harmful or disadvantageous to someone in some relevant way.”

In addition to Perlinger, scientists collaborating on the project are Noel Urban of Michigan Tech’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Shiliang Wu, who has dual appointments in Michigan Tech’s Departments of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences/Civil and Environmental Engineering; Emma Norman of Michigan Tech’s Department of Social Sciences and Great Lakes Research Center; Hugh Gorman, Michigan Tech’s Department of Social Sciences; Joan Chadde-Schumaker, Michigan Tech’s Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences and the Western UP Center for Science, Mathematics, and Environmental Education; Noelle Eckley Selin of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Engineering Systems Division and Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Daniel Obrist of the Desert Research Institute’s Division of Atmospheric Sciences; Henrik Selin of International Relations at Boston University; and Juanita Urban-Rich, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Department of Environmental, Earth and Ocean Sciences.

Read more at Michigan Tech News, by Marcia Goodrich.