Workshop to take science teaching into high-tech realm

By Susan Flanigan

published in On the Green on August 20, 2004

Happenings Archives

Science teachers of deaf students gathered at Gallaudet August 2 to 7 for a new SOAR-High Earth System Science workshop. The SOAR-High project uses cooperative learning and Internet applications such as web pages, chat rooms, and videoconferencing.

Workshop participants learned strategies for creating an online curriculum using data in the classroom and establishing classroom-to-classroom collaborations. These strategies included how to involve students in atmosphere studies such as visual cloud observations and Sun Photometer data collection (related to NASA’s CALIPSO mission), hydrosphere activities to track ocean currents, and earthquake and three-dimensional fault system analysis in geosphere studies.

A feature of the workshop was the use of classroom-to-classroom videoconferencing, where students discussed lab results such as a Sun Photometer experiment where students compared atmosphere water vapor measurements at their two schools.

“One of the highlights of the workshop was the opportunity to work with Dr. Michele Cooke, assistant professor of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts,” said Mary Ellsworth, workshop coordinator and MSSD science teacher. Ellsworth explained that Cooke, who is deaf, has a National Science Foundation grant to share her expertise in geosciences—faulting and earthquake studies—with schools for deaf students participating in the SOAR-High project.

The workshop was sponsored by Gallaudet and the Clerc Center. Participants’ fees were fully supported by a grant from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation. In addition to Cooke and Ellsworth, workshop instructors were Teresa Huckleberry of the Indiana School for the Deaf, and Dr. David Snyder, a professor in Gallaudet’s Chemistry and Physics Department.

The materials were designed for high school science teachers who are interested in participating in the Clerc Center’s SOAR-High Earth System Science Project for the 2004-2005 school year; who teach or plan to teach Earth science, physical science, or related areas; or who want to revitalize their science content and activity ideas.

For more information about the workshop, visit: sci.gallaudet.edu/MSSDScience/04ESSTDannounce.html

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