Hands On, Plugged In: Life on the Prairie
Go to Happenings or Spring/Summer Events.
Please read the Status Report on the Prairie
for detailed project proceedings (also in MSWord
format).
Happenings
Meeting with teachers at Urbana Middle School - December 10, 2002
Details
First of all, THANK YOU for meeting with us! Your ideas and suggestions are helping to shape this project.
In Attendence: Jane Cain, Theresa Feller, Jan Hari, Jean Korder, Walter Robinson, Kimberly Petzing, Aparna Raghunathan, Ann Bishop and Sharon Irish. The meeting was a useful discussion of logistics, curriculum ideas and state requirements, expectations, and budget. We shared the draft application for teachers, the draft of "prairie partners" and other resources, and the website text.
Question: Since Monticello has a junior high and Urbana has a middle school, will it be a challenge for teachers to mesh their classes? We discussed "loose connections" and how teachers could work small or large within the project.
Problem: "Descriptors" don't fit well with inquiry-based approaches.
Since the time frame before the Chautauqua is tight next fall, we discussed starting this spring with Guild artists, Inquiry Page meetings, clearinghouse contacts, and other activities that teachers could showcase next fall in addition to whatever they do over the summer and in September. One teacher had the idea of incorporating music and sounds into prairie studies--"Living on the Prairie" could help develop that idea, for example. Theresa Feller shared some old packets from the Illinois Department of Conservation as examples of what other resources are out there. Anita Purves has updated their prairie kit.
Urbana's sixth graders spend 6-7 weeks on ecology, studying the nutrient cycle, predator/prey relationships, adaptations, abiotic/biotic environments, natural resources and human population impacts, oxygen/carbon, and recycle/reduce/reuse. Theresa Feller summarized it as "our role in our natural world." Other sixth grade units cover astronomy and geology. We mentioned including Cahokia's layout related to solstices and equinoxes; also geology could be focused on Illinois. The eighth graders also study ecology, producers and consumers. Jan Hari described the Gungan Frontier work to study the balance of the ecosystem and then the project about West Nile virus that they piloted this year, with the challenge of how to naturally control mosquitoes and reduce the hazards. Students have to make real-world choices and consider the big picture. We UIUC folks will get a copy of the UMS science curriculum, including descriptors, from either Jean Korder or Don Owen.
Other Urbana teachers who might be interested: Jennifer Knapp (6th), Charles Pierce (7th). Marilyn Sinclair, a retired Champaign teacher and naturalist, would be a good contact for us to pursue. Ann Bishop then summarized some of our goals/ideas for "Living on the Prairie".
UMS teachers who have attended either a one-day workshop on Inquiry Page or taken a grad course: Jan Hari, Kevin Erlinger, Pam VanWalleghen, Theresa Feller. We want the teachers to be partners in the production of curriculum to the extent that they have the time. We also want to call attention to work being done that could be useful to teachers that they might not come across due to time constraints (Cecilia Vicuna's Seeds Project or Sundiata Cha Jua's work on Brooklyn, IL, for example.)
One content focus of interest to folks at this meeting was outlined by Walt: to look at the relationships to the natural environment by the Native inhabitants of the area now called Illinois; then by the early settlers; then by modern industrial farmers.