Bowling Green Independent School District Partnership
Current News
- Renewal of Partnership Contract for 2012-2013 school year.
- Professional Development
- Stream Trips
- Stream trip presentation-TC Cherry Elementary School, 4rth grade, 2012
- Stream trip presentation-Parker Bennett-Curry Elementary School, 4rth grade, 2012
Past News
- Partnership Contract for 2011-2012 school year.
- Professional Development
- Stream Trips
- Direct Teaching with Students
- Galleries
Current News
The Center's Program Coordinator, Robin Hume, will continue to work the Bowling Green Independent School District (BGISD) during the 2012-2013 school year. Robin will serve as a resource for the elementary science teachers in the district. Several trips to a local stream are being planned for the district's fourth grade students for this Fall. Robin will also work as a liaison between General Motors (GM) and BGISD to facilitate school projects at GM's new outdoor Habitat Area. With the new Common Core State Standards for Science being released in December of this year, Robin and a team of BGISD elementary science teachers will collaborate to find or create new science lesson plans, activities and labs which directly connect to the new standards.
To start the year off, a team of elementary and junior high school science teachers participated in an environmental education workshop led by the Center's director, Dr. Terry Wilson, and the Center's Program Coordinator, Robin Hume. The teachers were engaged with activities from Project WILD, Outdoor Biological Instructional Strategies (OBIS) and the Leopold Eduction Project. Dr. Wilson and Robin led a discussion with the teachers about the correlations of concepts in the environmental education activities to their current science standards and also the Next Generation Science Standards, which will be available next year.
On November 9, Dr. Terry Wilson and Robin Hume facilitated an Earth Force training for nine teachers from Bowling Green Junior High School. Earth Force is an organization that has developed a six-step service learning process which teachers can use with their students as they do their own service learning projects. During the training, Terry and Robin described each of the steps in the process and gave each teacher a copy of the Earth Force manual. This particular program is intended to be used with middle school students, so the manual will be a good resource for the teachers from BGJHS.
In the month of September, the Center's staff and volunteers from General Motors (GM),
led fourth grade students from Dishman-McGinnis, T.C. Cherry, McNeill, and Parker
Bennett-Curry Elementary Schools through a water quality investigation at Trammel
Creek in Alvaton, KY. Macroinvertebrates were collected and identified by the students.
The pH level and velocity of the stream was also calculated by the students. The
results of each of these activities helped students gauge the health of Trammel Creek.
In October, the Center's staff and GM volunteers will work with fourth graders from
Parker-Bennett Curry and Potter Gray elementary schools and certain classes from the
6th and 7th grades of Bowling Green Junior High. For slideshow of TC Cherry Elementary
School's visit to the stream, click here.
For slideshow of Parker Bennett-Curry's visit to the stream, click here.
GREEN program gives lesson on ecology (press release)
Robin Hume sprayed water on the little plastic model of a town while the Bowling Green Junior High School students watched, surrounded by fall's splendor at Romanza Johnson Park outside Alvaton. Wednesday's activity was the General Motors Global Rivers Environmental Education Network, or GREEN, program, and Hume, program coordinator for the WKU Center for Environmental Education and Sustainability, said the lesson teaches the children how all kinds of things affect an ecosystem and how that impact can be measured.
Past News
During the 2011-2012 school year, the Center's Program Coordinator, Robin Hume, worked with Bowling Green Independent School District to provide their elementary teachers with resources for science instruction. She worked with the district two days per week to provide instructional support for science teachers. She was available to lead science lab experiences for teachers upon request. This partnership has helped teachers plan instruction for science more easily and allowed more opportunities for the children to learn science concepts through environmental education.
In the fall and spring, the Center's staff and volunteers from General Motors (GM), led fourth grade students from Dishman-McGinnis, Potter Gray and McNeill elementary schools through a water quality investigation at Trammel Creek in Alvaton, KY. Macroinvertebrates were collected and identified by the students. The pH level and velocity of the stream was also calculated by the students. The results of each of these activities helped students gauge the health of Trammel Creek.
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Direct teaching with students
- Dishman-McGinnis invited Robin Hume to lead their three fourth grade classes through an activity from Flying WILD called Bird Olympics. The students compared their physical attributes with those of birds by measuring their "wing span", speed of travel, ability to smell, flapping rate and the amount of sustenance needed to survive for migration.
- Potter Gray invited Robin to lead a station at their annual Science Fair. Again, Robin used Flying WILD activities to engage the students by teaching about avian antics and the speed, perseverance and the team work it takes to care for a brood.
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Galleries
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