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TEACHING & LEARNING
UI, Iowa City Students Participate in NASA Project
Daly, Bates, and Diaz (from left) participate in once-in-a-lifetime NASA project. |
Two Iowa City High School students and Juan Diaz (MS ’06), a Science Education doctoral student, have a rare opportunity to participate in a Mars mission. Tomas Daly, Fletcher Bates, and Diaz will explore the surface of Mars as participants in the Phoenix Student Intern Program (PSIP) for the 2007-08 Phoenix Mars Lander Mission, a NASA project involving 13 teams selected from across the country.
Over the coming year, the three will work alongside scientists and engineers on the Phoenix Mars Mission, which launched August 4.
“It’s really cool to meet the next generation of rocket scientists,” said Daly, 17, who is contemplating a career as an aeronautical engineer.
“We’ve all heard of the Spirit and Opportunity rover missions,” Bates said. “I just can’t believe I’m part of something so significant.”
The PSIP is a program designed to give high school students like Bates and Daly and their teachers active experience in the areas of science, engineering, mathematics, and technology. The 13 teams, each consisting of one teacher and two students, were selected from across the country following a national application process. These student-teacher teams will each work with a member scientist of the Phoenix Science Team.
Diaz said he was honored when Brian Hand, a UI science education professor, identified him as an excellent teacher to be involved with this project, and helped put him in touch with Daly and Bates.
“This project gives students an idea of what science really is—true investigations and research,” Diaz said.
Learning to Ask Questions
Taiwanese students study a local turtle while Reasland evaluates the learning process. |
Ten-year-old Sam stood in front of his fellow Taiwanese students in a University of Iowa classroom and shared what he’d learned about Iowa’s insects.
One slide on his PowerPoint presentation showed a dragon fly clasped between two fingers.
“It is hard to catch, but I caught one,” he said.
Sam was among 40 Taiwanese students and staff who visited the UI for two weeks this summer to learn about the natural world. Students ranged in age from 10 to 18 and spent much of their time at Lake Macbride seeing nature close-up.
Aaron Reasland (BS ’06) was the students’ outdoor education instructor. He said he hoped to achieve two things with the students each day: to interact in the field hands-on with nature, and then to investigate and study more in the classroom about what they’d seen.
“They learned about everything from wetlands to wilderness survival, prairie restoration, songbirds and raptors, insects,” Reasland said. “The main lesson we wanted to teach them was that you need to ask questions to seek answers and to seek out why things are they way they are. Science isn’t based on answers.”
A canoe trip on Lake Macbride provides perfect setting to begin education reform. |
Reasland said the question-based method, as well as spending extended time in nature, were new for many of the Taiwanese students.
“These students said that in Taiwan they’re not allowed to ask questions of their teachers. So this was an awesome opportunity for them,” he said. “To me, asking a question is where the learning process begins.”
Science Education Professor Emeritus Robert Yager also worked closely with the students and said he hopes that the visit planted seeds to help reform science education in Taiwan as well as to help the students become change agents for their environment and their own education.
“They had a fantastic time considering ecological issues and seeing and participating in the living world of which they are a part,” Yager said.
Helping Children Understand
the Constitution
A program to teach Iowa’s middle school and high school students about the U.S. Constitution found a new home at The University of Iowa College of Education.
Professor Greg Hamot recently took over as state director for the We the People program, which was started in 1987 by the Center for Civic Education and is funded through a congressional line item for use in all 50 states.
“The program is about encouraging teachers to help young people understand the Constitution,” Hamot said.
Through We the People, district coordinators distribute workbooks and curricula to schools throughout the state as well as provide professional development for teachers. In addition to the classroom work, teachers can choose to put together teams of students to participate in simulated congressional hearings, which culminate in a national competition in Washington, D.C.
Lois Crowley (BA ’72, MA’ 95) joined the We the People staff as state coordinator. She was previously employed as the 7-12 social studies curriculum coordinator for Iowa City schools. Crowley said We the People is an excellent tool for teaching students about the constitution, civil liberties, and democracy.
Des Moines East High School wins Iowa’s We the People contest |
“Our citizens need to understand our democracy and that the Constitution is a living, breathing document,” she said. “We often take for granted and make the mistake that just because we live here we know the ins and outs of our government.”
Hamot said his goal as state director is to increase the number of teachers who take advantage of the curriculum. Crowley said another goal is to involve College of Education students.
“We hope that by being at The University of Iowa, we can tap into the pre-service teachers, that they can become familiar with the We the People program and use it in their curriculum,” Crowley said.
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