Environmental Education: Environmental Education: Acquiring, Sharing and Applying Knowledge
IWA is committed to providing more hands-on learning opportunities and enhancing the environmental science program that has been restricted to indoor classrooms. Established in 2006, the IWA Learning Garden provides our students with an outside learning lab with 5 teaching beds and a two-tiered seating area for teachers to conduct classes.
In the summer of 2007, IWA received a $5,000 grant from Dominion to equip our outside learning lab and classrooms with the tools for scientific exploration in our own backyard. Weather equipment like thermometers, wind monitors, rain gauges and barometers were installed at IWA and a program was developed for students to acquire, share, and apply knowledge as it relates to the environment.
Students in grades 4, 5, and 7 have been observing weather and utilizing the various weather instruments to gather data. They have been recording weather changes and communicating this information locally to St. Rocco School, a partner in the project. Students have also been comparing environmental data with other local, national and international schools to increase their understanding of the effects of weather on a global scale. In addition to studying the weather, the grant is helping the students learn about the related topics of water cycles, watersheds and ecosytems. In May, our students took their investigation on location visiting the Berea Water Treatment Plant (4th grade) and Great Lakes Science Center (5th and 7th grade) to examine all aspects of the watershed and view first-hand the interaction between the weather and the environment. A Cleveland Metroparks naturalist also visited in the class room to help our 7th graders identify major sources of fresh water at local watersheds, analyze how water becomes polluted and then purified for reuse, and explore how much water people use, waste and conserve. Students learned how water travels through the ground and different types of soils and ultimately becomes the water that we use each day. This project has increased student awareness of their effect upon and responsibility for our environment. Collaboratng with other local, national and international schools provides a foundation for our students to think globally and act locally. This environmental education has enabled students at IWA and St. Rocco to truly realize that their individual actions have a powerful impact on the environment. One way that they are hightlighting this impact is by reducing their lunch room waste in a collaborative effort between the two schools. The week May 19th, IWA and St. Rocco participated in a joint project to decrease lunchroom garbage produced. They weighed their trash every day and discussed ways they can strive toward zero lunch room waste. The students looked at how they may pack their lunches differently, recycle and also compost elegible waste.
How will this project enhanced student learning?
Students
will learn how to select appropriate tools to measure and record weather
changes. Thermometers, wind monitors, rain gauges, Vernier sensors, and
barometers will be used to provide hands-on interactive learning as
students measure and test the environmental factors and manipulate,
interpret and present the data graphically using computer programs. Students will increase their knowledge of
ecosystems as they explore concepts of the water cycle, condensation,
precipitation, evaporation, freezing and melting. Students will compare environmental data locally, nationally and internationally to increase their
understanding of the effects of weather on a global scale. The 5th
grade students took part in a project called
Weather Around the World
in which the students examined and recorded weather
characteristics around the world. Students will increase their understanding of
the process of scientific inquiry by asking valid questions, gathering and
analyzing information, developing hypotheses and making predictions about
the world around them. Students will build upon their knowledge of weather
learned in the IWA Garden and apply it to learning about local watersheds
and its direct relationship to Lake Erie.
Students will take their
investigation on location to examine all aspects of the watershed and view
first-hand the interaction between the weather and the environment.
Students will identify major sources of fresh water at local watersheds,
analyze how water becomes polluted and then purified for reuse, and
explore how much water people use, waste and conserve. They will
understand how water travels through the ground and different types of
soils and ultimately becomes the water that we use each day.
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