Category: Teacher Education

The Center for Pre-College Outreach invites faculty and staff to volunteer at Get WISE (Get Women in Science and Engineering). 7th and 8th grade girls from the western Upper Peninsula are invited to spend the day at Michigan Tech, where they participate in a range of activities to reconnect them with the exciting, dynamic world of engineering. Participants compete in several​ challenges, which include projects like: building and testing a bridge with household materials, creating a device to travel across the room into target zones or designing a simple device that will stay airborne for as long as possible. The CPCO and WUP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education are excited to host this event once more for 250 young women.

Get WISE will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 24 from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Wood Gym. Volunteers are needed to facilitate the activities, serve lunch and engage with the participants as role models. Please consider donating an hour or two of your time to make a difference in the lives of these young women. Everyone is welcome to volunteer regardless of department or engineering background and any amount of time is appreciated. For more information, contact Liz Fujita (eafujita@mtu.edu).

From Tech Today.

As part of the 2015 Green Film Series, there will be a showing of “The Human Scale” on Thursday, Jan. 15, at 7:00 p.m. in G002 Hesterberg Hall (Forestry building).

Based on the work of famed architect and urban planner Jan Gehl, the film highlights real solutions that promise a more humanistic dimension to cities where people are not displaced by congested streets, skyscrapers and the car-centric urbanism of the 1960s and ’70s. There will be a discussion following the film facilitated by Nathan Miller of the Keweenaw Land Trust.

The event is cosponsored by the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative, Michigan Tech Center for Water and Society and the Keweenaw Land Trust. Coffee, tea and refreshments will be provided by the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. The event is free and open to the public.

For information about upcoming events, view the complete Green Film Series schedule.

From Tech Today.

PI Terry Sharik (SFRES) and Co-PIs Joan Chadde (CEE), Amy Lark (CLS), Amy Schrank (SFRES) and Amber Roth (SFRES), “Strategies: Sentries: STEM Engagement Through Natural Resources and Environmental Science,” NSF

Read more at Tech Today.

July 31, 2015 through August 8, 2015
Deadline: May 1, 2015

MooseWatch for Educators is a unique field experience in support of the ecological study of wolves and moose at Isle Royale National Park.

The field component of the course will be nine days in length. Travel to Isle Royale will be by NPS ferry Ranger III to/from Houghton, MI. On the island, orientation and training will take place at the Bangsund Cabin (home of the wolf-moose study) prior to the backcountry expedition.

Learn more about current institutes for teacher professional development.

What can you do with your family to celebrate winter and nature? K-6 students and their parents are invited to turn off their electronics and enjoy a fun evening together making nature crafts and taking a snowshoe night hike at the Nara Nature Center and Park. The event will take place from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 15.

The nature crafts and snowshoe night hike activities will each be offered from 6:05 to 6:45 p.m. and from 6:50 to 7:30 p.m. Families may participate in one or both indoor and outdoor activities. The event is free, but donations are welcome. Craft supplies, hot chocolate and tea, as well as child and adult snowshoes will be provided while supplies last.

For the outdoor activity, families can take a hike in the woods, on foot or on snowshoes, listening and looking for signs of wildlife and viewing the night sky, as part of a naturalist-led hike at Nara Nature Park. IIf your have your own pair of snowshoes, please bring them. Dress warmly.

For the indoor activity, families can make several types of nature crafts to take home while enjoying the cozy warmth of the Nara Nature Center Chalet, including birchbark cutout ornaments.

The Winter Family Fun Night is coordinated by the Western UP Math and Science Center and the Michigan Tech Center for Science and Environmental Outreach. Use of the Nara Center is provided by the City of Houghton, and Bob and Ruth Nara.

This is the first in a monthly series of outdoor family fun nights and monthly family outings to be held on Saturday afternoons at the Nara Nature Center and the Maasto Hiihto Chalet over the coming year. These programs are funded by the Michigan Alliance of Environmental Professionals.

From Tech Today.

The Center for Science and Environmental Outreach, along with the Michigan Tech Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers student chapter, conducted a Family Engineering Night at Escuela Avancemos Academy in Southwest Detroit (Mexicantown) on Nov. 24. John Deere provided support for the event, which featured activities in both English and Spanish and offered a free dinner in the school’s cafeteria. Approximately 180 participated, including students in grades K-5 and their family members.

The following members of the Michigan Tech community presented at the event:

• Uzi Mendez ’13 (Bio Med)
• Michael Briseno (Bio Med/ECE), undergraduate student
• Zoe Miller (CEE), master’s student
• Gabriella Shirkey ’13 (HU)
• Joan Chadde, director of the Center for Science and Environmental Outreach

From Tech Today.

PI Joan Schumaker Chadde and Co-PI Lloyd Wescoat (CEE), “FACTs&Careers: Scalable v. Intensive Educational Programs at a Public Aquarium to Increase STEM Career Choices,” Wayne State University

Read more at Tech Today.

Come to the free K-5 Family Science and Engineering Night, tomorrow at 6 to 7:30 p.m., at the Portage Lake District Library. Michigan Tech science and engineering students will present two activity sessions.

• Pre-K to Second Grade: “Buzzing Bees” and “What Floats Your Boat?” 6:05—6:45 p.m.
• Third through Fifth Grade: “Be a Computer Programmer” and “Blood and Guts” 6:50–7:30 p.m.

For more information, call the Portage Lake District Library at 482-4570.

Family Science Night is conducted by the Western UP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education and Michigan Tech with funding from the Family Engineering Program and assistance from Portage Lake District Library Community Programs.

From Tech Today.

Amy Lark, PhD
Amy Lark joins the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences as an assistant professor. Lark comes to Michigan Tech from Michigan State University.

She received a PhD in Science Education and a master’s in zoology from Michigan State.

Lark belongs to the National Science Teachers Association, the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research and the Society for the Study of Evolution. She has been published in American Midland Naturalist and theJournal of Comparative Physiology.

Read more at Tech Today.

Joan Chadde attended the 43rd Annual North American Association for Environmental Education Conference this month in Ottawa, Canada, where she presented “Engaging Under-Represented Students in Urban Forest Stewardship.”

Also traveling with Chadde was Houghton High School science teacher, Lauri Davis (partner-teacher with the Center for Water and Society), who presented “Environmental Research Projects: Getting High School Student Intimate with Nature,” a project funded by the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative.

From Tech Today.