Airful!+Notes

KF: the colored particulate matter in water demonstration worked REALLY well this round. Teaching what toxicologists call "cumulative effect" -- how chemicals mix, having an impact we understand even less that that of single chemicals. I think we need to add a layer that shows/tells them how power plants, factories and even cars produce pollution. They don't know that.

NT: I agree with Prof. Fortun that the experiment with colored water was really good for the first-graders. I'm not sure the five-steps model went as well. Some of it was just the order of activities - after playing with something very hands-on like water, moving to an abstract piece of paper was "boring," and the children in my group were restless and more interested in drawing pictures. Actually, that would have been good idea - let them draw pictures for each of the steps...I wasn't thinking about that at the time. The wording of the model seemed a little confusing to me, too; "the causes of the problem's causes." I had to keep on rephrasing it when I talked to the students. The last problem, which I think everyone felt, was that there wasn't enough time. Every time I got a really good question about the experiment we were doing, I would begin answering it, when a teacher clapped and the child suddenly had to focus on something else instead. Maybe I just have to become a faster answer-er.

Alexandra Evans Journal Reflection: The first graders were quite the experience. Besides being extremely distracted by my hair (I'll bring a hair tie next time...) they did seem to understand the "Step Up to Solutions" model. They were even able to figure out the "causes of the causes" of air pollution ("we go to far away places", "we produce electricity", etc) and figured out solutions such as carpooling, not just riding a bike instead of driving a car (Although they did come up with that one, too). It was surprising because I thought they weren't paying attention to the presentation at the front of the room at all (talking, giggling, bothering each other in general), but they knew what they were doing when I worked with them on the model. It was a fun experience, and I think the first grade sustainability education group did a wonderful job putting their first session together. The kids seemed to have enjoyed it and learned a lot. I will say that I guess I didn't really realize that misbehavior may be a problem until I sat down with the kids and had a hard time getting them not to fight over the pens, pay attention to the speaker, etc. I have a whole new appreciation for first grade teachers.

ML: I often find that reflection on the "in the moment" of educating is difficult. There is so much going on with so many different little people seeking attention that my already easily distractible mind blurs many of the events together. This is especially difficult if on is trying to take field note on the experience. But what was extremely helpful was the mentor to student ratio. I think it was a great idea for use to have small 4-5 student groups with one mentor. I found that these small groups made it easier to reiterate information in the introduction and mini-lesson. All together I think Michelle's project was a success. I had students hypothesize what was going to happen when we put all of the different pollutants together. All the students predicted a rainbow, and to their surprise it turned a brownish-red, one student even said it looked like blood, which, I imagine, is a bit visceral for little people to see so much liquid that looks like blood. I think the SUTS model worked well, the students, once prompted with the question were able to answer it. Can we make the questions more visual? I mean can we figure out a way for the students to be more connected to the model instead of it being mediated through a mentor? I also think we need to figure out a way to spend time on words they did not know (environment for instance). These unknown words should motivate us to think about points of intervention, how can we build a "hybrid" (Haraway 1991; Latour 1993 ) view of the word/notion/meaning of environment? This is the only word that stuck out to me that they did not know, but I am sure there are others. We should do some early childhood reading before we go in again! for example: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED433943.pdf

Kelley F: Obviously, we had a bit of a timing issue with the first graders... Although, all things considered, this may have even worked to our advantage, with the students now gaining more time to learn about the model and how to use it. The students were VERY giggly and easily distracted, so I think we may need to follow Mr. Share's and Mrs. Bailey's methods a bit more in trying to get everyone back on track. Overall, this went very well! The students loved Michelle's microbe and she did a great job keeping everyone's interest, even when they wanted to drink the kool-aid and goof off.