Conley-Wilson+Curriculum+Review+3+-+Poughkeepsie+Day+School

Curriculum Review 3: Kids Doing/Thinking Ecology Word Count 607 On November 7, 2015, the Environmental Consortium of Colleges & Universities held a conference at Vassar College that included students, staff, and professors in colleges, universities, and high schools. In my time there, I was exposed to the students and teachers of the Poughkeepsie Day School which is an independent school in Poughkeepsie, New York. In this school, Brent Boscarino is a teacher that educates high school students on the invasive Species Research Group Seneca Lake, NY. These students got hands on experience that included researching the Hemimysis anomal, a species of bloody red shrimp in the Hudson River. These children were obviously who perform highly, privileged kids who are capable of doing undergraduate level work at a young age. Although I had emailed this teacher, he did not respond with additional information of the curriculum.
 * Background**

The Poughkeepsie Day School, an independent school in Poughkeepsie, New York developed the curriculum module I am evaluating. I assume Mr. Brent Boscarino developed this specific curriculum module.
 * What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating?**
 * What is the mission of the organization?**

The mission of the organization is to educate students completely and comprehensively through doing. Their goals is to assist their students to succeed and help them unlock their potential along with discovering what they could do in the future. This school state that their education is “not cookie cutter education because our students are not dough to be squeezed into pre-shaped forms but individual children with unique potential.” []

As stated above this school’s philosophy of teaching is a hand-on specialized approach to education that allows for engagement to be involved in teaching.
 * What is the education mission and philosophy of the organization?**

The curriculum model aims to both Get Kids Outside and allow them to do ecology. This program allows kids to both mentally and physically reflect on ecology which many kids do not have experience with. Students are able to understand and present about the impact that invasive species have.
 * What does the curriculum model aim to teach? In other words? What are the learning outcomes supposed to be?**

The curriculum is absolutely appropriated designed to produce the intended learning outcomes. Students are effectively learning because they were able to present posters without the teacher’s help at a college conference. These kids were very engaged and excited to inform older students on their research and work on this project which is really remarkable.
 * Do you think the curriculum is appropriated designed to produce the intended learning outcomes?**

This curriculum teaches many of the kinds of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates such as understanding how their own actions an array of proximate and far off effects, understanding of different scientific disciplines and medical specializations, understanding of the history of disaster and decision-making failures, understanding of potential for change, ability to conceptualize complex causation without being paralyzed, and having creative info-seeking practices.
 * Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates?**

Political literacy could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses the learning outcomes of “understanding of the government at various scales, from the local to transnational, made up of diverse agencies and types of experts, which rely on diverse decision-making processes.” It would be great to layer in collective action to fix or address the issue of the bloody red shrimp in the waters which is the issue they are studying.
 * What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates?**

Although this curriculum and afterschool activity is a fantastic curriculum it may not be realistic to fit into public school curriculum given its constraints academically, financially, and in the numbers of faculty. This program is primarily funded by grants from the NSF. This school can function the way it can because it is a private school that is independent from the public school system. It would be great to set up a program or class between high school students and college students in a way that they could work on research together. This could make funding a bit easier for the public schools and get undergraduate students more involved in research.
 * How could this fit into public school curriculum?**