Drama and excitement are integral parts of my lessons in middle school. Students come to their first real science course with one question: “When do we get to blow stuff up?” (My administrators ask me the same question, but with much less enthusiasm.) Since I like my job, and would like to keep it for a few more years, I have to compromise between the two groups-and volcanoes are the perfect way to do so. Anchorage School District curriculum doesn’t provide extensive ways to cover volcanoes in seventh grade, but I always manage to squeeze a day or two in during our rock cycle unit. Students love to see pictures and videos of volcanic eruptions, and the prospect of getting to simulate an eruption on a much smaller scale is motivation enough for most to complete the less exciting classwork during the unit.
After watching the clips and reading the information for Module 4, however, I’m inspired to include more of these student-friendly cataclysmic events by tying them into our motion and forces unit. The various media portraying volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and earthquakes provide excellent examples of forces at work on earth, and the resulting damage gives me an opportunity to talk about all three of Newton’s Laws. (As an aside, this site provides a great explanation of Newton's Three Laws for anyone who is interested. It isn't classroom appropriate, unfortunately.) Only being in Alaska for 5 years, I'm unfamiliar with most of the local geologic history, and I've found it fascinating to learn about local cataclysmic events. The 1958 Lituya Bay tsunami really stuck in my mind, and I've retold the story several times since to others who hadn't heard it.
Ultimately, I love to include volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis in my lessons because they are relevant to the students in a truly real way. Students today are overwhelmed with computer-generated, Hollywood stuntman, tweaked, twisted, airbrushed, don’t try this at home impossibilities. But when I show them an erupting volcano or roaring, massive tsunami, there’s nothing fake about it. Being able to teach these types of lessons in Alaska is especially meaningful to students because it is such a seismically active area. Everyone here has a story to tell-especially about the 1964 earthquake. Suddenly, parents, relatives, and other adults in my students’ lives aren’t an annoyance or embarrassment, they’re a source of stories as good or better than this week’s latest release at the movie theatre.
To incorporate earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis into my forces unit, I used the “download” feature on Teacher Domain for the first time this week. (We can't access many videos/clips/streaming media at school.) I was not only able to share the video clips easily with my students, but I was able to show them on my SmartBoard-a recent addition to my classroom. I was pretty impressed with myself! I was also able to bring GoogleEarth into my lesson. The realtime earthquake feature was a favorite for both myself and my classes. We also explored the USGS Earthquake website, and the Alaska Earthquake Information Center. I also found a site that shows several ways to recreate volcanic eruptions-on a much smaller scale-in the classroom. I am working on ways to tie this activity into our forces unit, so that the students can finally “blow something up,” like they’re so eager to do.
Not only did I learn a great deal about cataclysmic events and general earth science concepts during my work on Module Four, I was also able to bring a great deal of it into the classroom right away (my students think the Explore Alaska class is the coolest class EVER.) I also had several parents email me to let me know what a great conversation started the cataclysmic events were at home. Some had better conversations with their students that evening than they had in a while(!). In the future, I would like to expand this part of the forces unit to include guest speakers from the community, who can briefly share their personal experiences of natural disasters, and reinforce the relevancy of this topic for my students.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Module III: Blog Review
As mentioned in my module III blog post, I greatly enjoyed Dan's and Cheryl's commentary on Module III. I found both points of view aligned with my ideas and thoughts on this week's activities, and gave me new things to think about, both in my own learning and with regard to my classroom.
I was impressed by Amy's photo citations. Giving credit to sources is important, but something I struggle with, and while it is not officially part of the curriculum, I will make it a personal challenge to begin providing photo credits like the ones on Amy's blog.
I was impressed by Amy's photo citations. Giving credit to sources is important, but something I struggle with, and while it is not officially part of the curriculum, I will make it a personal challenge to begin providing photo credits like the ones on Amy's blog.
Module III: Landforms and Culture
Are we reaching a time when our essential landforms stop being part of the land?
The Week Three module was interesting to me because I can relate, albeit loosely, to the idea of being formed by the landscape around me. My parents raised my sister and me to have a constant awareness of the landscape around us. Knowing the names of mountains, rivers, animals, and plants was a "game" we played whenever we were out. Knowing about the natural world around us was something we did automatically, and even now I find myself testing myself on the names of the features and organisms around me in my new home-Alaska. Because of that background, I was especially captivated by the double names for famous mountains presented in Module III: Landform Forces. I spent a great deal of time on Wikipedia, looking up well-known landforms and learning the history, legends, and stories behind them. I shared a few of the local or native names for famous landforms with my students, and found many of them to be equally interested. I would like to use these examples of double names to introduce students to the idea of classification later in the year. Trying to work amongst varying languages, cultures and customs makes effective communication more difficult, and seems to be a primary stumbling block in cross-cultural scientific learning and sharing. As we explore the different names for both landforms and organisms in Alaska and around the world, students will get a clear idea of why a standardized form of scientific naming is so vital.
I knew just what Cheryl meant when she described going to college in ID, and realizing not everywhere had glaciers, volcanoes, and earthquakes. I was equally amazed by our family vacations when I was young. Growing up in Colorado, I had no idea that there were places where you couldn’t tell the direction from the mountains on the horizon, or where summer and fall were as green as spring instead of fading to dusty brown. I was amazed by the desert in Nevada, and completely in love with the oceans off Florida’s shores. Over the last few years, I’ve been startled and disappointed to learn that several of the students in my classes each year have never traveled outside of the Anchorage bowl. Even more have never been outside of Alaska, and very few have been outside the country-even including Canada! I try to show my students a variety of pictures, movies, and written depictions of places around the world. Google Earth, especially Google Earth 3D will be an invaluable tool as I expose my classes to places outside of Anchorage. Zooming in from a map they are familiar with to focus on a place that they have never seen before will allow them to realize that these are real places, not simply the creation of a director’s fantasy on a movie set, or programming tricks in a video game. Just as Dan said this week in his blog, visual learners especially will benefit from seeing real images of the place I'm describing, rather than just hearing or reading about places as abstract ideas.
I especially enjoyed Module III because it took a subject I was already familiar with and interested in, and showed me valuable ways to better incorporate landscapes and their influence on cultures into my curriculum-and personal learning! To paraphrase Richard Glenn, the resources I explored as part of this module provide me with several more flashlights.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Connections: Week Two
Connection: a link; an association; reference or relation to another. Connection is created or strengthened in every interaction between two things. Connection does not require awareness, let alone acquiescence. Connections are rarely neutral, but the nature-good or bad-of the connection is an opinion based greatly upon what role the judger plays in the relationship. Culture, instincts, habits, and behaviors are all created from and reliant upon connection.
Indigenous people and Western scientists seem to differ fundamentally in their regard for connection. Indigenous people’s awareness, acceptance, and respect for connection, measured against Western scientists’ ignorance, disregard, and often outright dismissal of connection, has created a stereotype portrayed endlessly in books, movies, and life around the world. As is often the case in the “might makes right” history of the world, Western views tend to predominate and at times overwhelm indigenous people’s views and beliefs.
Western views, both scientific and common, seem to view connection and control as synonymous. In every interaction, Western science seeks ultimately to control the objects, entities, and systems with which it is connecting. Western science seeks understanding of “how” and “why” as a means to exert influence and control. Indigenous people also seek to understand the “how” and “why” of the processes and things in their world. But native people seek understanding for an entirely different purpose: not to control, but to coexist. Rather than bending the world to their needs and wants, indigenous people use their understanding of the world to adapt themselves to their surroundings. This fundamental difference in purpose can be seen in the teaching methods of Western vs. native cultures. In Western cultures, we have “scientists”-people with fancy titles who work in “labs”-sterile locations far removed from the common people and daily life. In native cultures, knowledge of the world is considered a basic knowledge that every member of the community needs to have in order to function to their highest potential.
It is only recently that Western science has begun to realize the value of the Native ways of relating to, studying, and understanding the world around us. By seeing the interconnectedness of everything-in and outside of this world-Western science has begun to undergo a paradigm shift. Rather than perceiving the world and our connections to it simply as a resource to be mined, with everything not directly beneficial to the miner cast aside without thought, Western science and culture has begun to embrace the connections that exist in some way between everything in existence. The Butterfly Effect is a monumental example of Western science beginning to see the value of regarding the world from a different perspective-an indigenous perspective.
Global climate change provides another example of how Western science for too long ignored connections between people and the earth that were not valuable or controllable. Because the changes wrought globally by Western technological advances were neither controllable or profitable, scientists were content for a long time to simply ignore the warning signs plainly obvious to anyone paying attention (as many native tribes were). Now, scientists are not only turning to indigenous people for data (recognition and understanding of the connections between humans and our surroundings), but are in turn teaching indigenous people to use Western technology to better recognize, understand, and adapt to natural objects and processes.
Indigenous views of connection allow people to live comfortably in the environment, to understand the impacts of altering that world, and to adapt ourselves to our surroundings in positive and meaningful ways. Western science can provide tools and information about the natural world that leads to a deeper understanding of our role and impact on Earth and in the universe. By working together, and by melding Western understanding with Native awareness, we can use the infinite connections that exist to enhance our lives without compromising anyone or anything else’s.
It is this melding of Western and native views that needs to be taught in the classroom. Too often in popular culture today, the Earth and her resources are seen as expendable, with little regard for the consequences of such instant gratification for the masses. If science classrooms focus more on the infinite, ever-changing connections that exist everywhere, rather than on labs that students do “just because they can,” there is a chance to integrate Western and indigenous approaches to science. By focusing on connections-and the inevitable consequences, good and bad, of those connections-students today can learn not only to enjoy the resources available to them, but to use our ever-improving technology and knowledge to strengthen and support vital connections human life depends upon.
Indigenous people and Western scientists seem to differ fundamentally in their regard for connection. Indigenous people’s awareness, acceptance, and respect for connection, measured against Western scientists’ ignorance, disregard, and often outright dismissal of connection, has created a stereotype portrayed endlessly in books, movies, and life around the world. As is often the case in the “might makes right” history of the world, Western views tend to predominate and at times overwhelm indigenous people’s views and beliefs.
Western views, both scientific and common, seem to view connection and control as synonymous. In every interaction, Western science seeks ultimately to control the objects, entities, and systems with which it is connecting. Western science seeks understanding of “how” and “why” as a means to exert influence and control. Indigenous people also seek to understand the “how” and “why” of the processes and things in their world. But native people seek understanding for an entirely different purpose: not to control, but to coexist. Rather than bending the world to their needs and wants, indigenous people use their understanding of the world to adapt themselves to their surroundings. This fundamental difference in purpose can be seen in the teaching methods of Western vs. native cultures. In Western cultures, we have “scientists”-people with fancy titles who work in “labs”-sterile locations far removed from the common people and daily life. In native cultures, knowledge of the world is considered a basic knowledge that every member of the community needs to have in order to function to their highest potential.
It is only recently that Western science has begun to realize the value of the Native ways of relating to, studying, and understanding the world around us. By seeing the interconnectedness of everything-in and outside of this world-Western science has begun to undergo a paradigm shift. Rather than perceiving the world and our connections to it simply as a resource to be mined, with everything not directly beneficial to the miner cast aside without thought, Western science and culture has begun to embrace the connections that exist in some way between everything in existence. The Butterfly Effect is a monumental example of Western science beginning to see the value of regarding the world from a different perspective-an indigenous perspective.
Global climate change provides another example of how Western science for too long ignored connections between people and the earth that were not valuable or controllable. Because the changes wrought globally by Western technological advances were neither controllable or profitable, scientists were content for a long time to simply ignore the warning signs plainly obvious to anyone paying attention (as many native tribes were). Now, scientists are not only turning to indigenous people for data (recognition and understanding of the connections between humans and our surroundings), but are in turn teaching indigenous people to use Western technology to better recognize, understand, and adapt to natural objects and processes.
Indigenous views of connection allow people to live comfortably in the environment, to understand the impacts of altering that world, and to adapt ourselves to our surroundings in positive and meaningful ways. Western science can provide tools and information about the natural world that leads to a deeper understanding of our role and impact on Earth and in the universe. By working together, and by melding Western understanding with Native awareness, we can use the infinite connections that exist to enhance our lives without compromising anyone or anything else’s.
It is this melding of Western and native views that needs to be taught in the classroom. Too often in popular culture today, the Earth and her resources are seen as expendable, with little regard for the consequences of such instant gratification for the masses. If science classrooms focus more on the infinite, ever-changing connections that exist everywhere, rather than on labs that students do “just because they can,” there is a chance to integrate Western and indigenous approaches to science. By focusing on connections-and the inevitable consequences, good and bad, of those connections-students today can learn not only to enjoy the resources available to them, but to use our ever-improving technology and knowledge to strengthen and support vital connections human life depends upon.
Monday, October 11, 2010
My Favorite Place (Week One)
I have a number of places that are special to me, either for the memories they hold, the way their beauty takes my breath away, the emotions of excitement, peace, or wonder they create in me, or simply the physical qualities they embody-smells, sounds, sights that appeal to me on some level. Some of these places are back in Colorado where I grew up, others are vacation destinations, others I've only experienced vicariously through books, pictures, and stories.
Of all the places in my mind, though, I have to choose my favorite not simply because it meets all of the above criteria of good memories, pleasant associations, and a location that will never leave my list of travel destinations, but also because it is right down the road. This place, in fact, is at the end of the road: the Homer Spit.
The Homer Spit was a place I discovered on accident. My touristy weekends during my first few years in Alaska never took me that direction down the Kenai Penninsula-instead, my wanderings south always seemed to end somewhere between Girdwood and Seward. It wasn't until a dinner party when someone mentioned the Eagle Lady that I even considered the idea of heading down to Homer.
It was March of 2008 when I first packed the car for an overnight trip to Homer. I arrived late in the afternoon, and Herbie-my trusty travel companion-and I spent the rest of the sunlit hours on the beach. I collected rocks and shells, smelled the sea air, and tried not to freeze. Herbie was smart enough not to get in the water, but explored every inch of beach exposed to him.
Our reason for the trip had been to see one of the last eagle feeding ever to take place on the Spit-and the sight of almost 400 bald eagles waiting, feeding, perching, and flying over the tiny area near the end of the Spit was beyond description. My favorite memory of that morning was the young eagle who walked (waddled?) up behind all of the photographers, examining them with the same curiosity and enthusiasm that they were snapping pictures with.
Beyond the eagles, though, I fell in love with the wide open expanses of water, the smell of the air, the sight of the dark gray stones intermixed with beach treasures-shells, white quartz stones rubbed smooth by the waves, and driftwood of every shape and size. Even the cold was invigorating, and Herbie felt the same way-we were both instantly in love with everything about the Spit.
We've been back several times since, and the Spit never fails to disappoint. It will always be one of my-our-favorite places.
Of all the places in my mind, though, I have to choose my favorite not simply because it meets all of the above criteria of good memories, pleasant associations, and a location that will never leave my list of travel destinations, but also because it is right down the road. This place, in fact, is at the end of the road: the Homer Spit.
The Homer Spit was a place I discovered on accident. My touristy weekends during my first few years in Alaska never took me that direction down the Kenai Penninsula-instead, my wanderings south always seemed to end somewhere between Girdwood and Seward. It wasn't until a dinner party when someone mentioned the Eagle Lady that I even considered the idea of heading down to Homer.
It was March of 2008 when I first packed the car for an overnight trip to Homer. I arrived late in the afternoon, and Herbie-my trusty travel companion-and I spent the rest of the sunlit hours on the beach. I collected rocks and shells, smelled the sea air, and tried not to freeze. Herbie was smart enough not to get in the water, but explored every inch of beach exposed to him.
Our reason for the trip had been to see one of the last eagle feeding ever to take place on the Spit-and the sight of almost 400 bald eagles waiting, feeding, perching, and flying over the tiny area near the end of the Spit was beyond description. My favorite memory of that morning was the young eagle who walked (waddled?) up behind all of the photographers, examining them with the same curiosity and enthusiasm that they were snapping pictures with.
Beyond the eagles, though, I fell in love with the wide open expanses of water, the smell of the air, the sight of the dark gray stones intermixed with beach treasures-shells, white quartz stones rubbed smooth by the waves, and driftwood of every shape and size. Even the cold was invigorating, and Herbie felt the same way-we were both instantly in love with everything about the Spit.
We've been back several times since, and the Spit never fails to disappoint. It will always be one of my-our-favorite places.
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