This past week was the fourth week of the program at the STEM Learning Center where students continue to build on topics that they have learned in the previous week. Students in third through fifth grades are studying geology, learning about minerals, the earth and the environment. Students in Kindergarten through second grade are studying paleontology, learning about the study of fossils, the past, and dinosaurs.
Paleontology
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Students use paleontology tools to dig through sand to locate dinosaurs and create prehistoric environments. Photo by Maria Fernanda Avila for Project Exploration.
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Students learned key terms from Paleontology in English and Spanish. Photo by Ben Cummings for Project Exploration.
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The Triceratops is Herbivorous dinosaur, with eyes on the side of its head. Photo by Maria Fernanda Avila for Project Exploration.
Last week, K-2 students learned to name and identify dinosaurs. For example, students learned that carnivores had their eyes looking forward while herbivores had their eyes pointed to their sides, said Maria Fernanda Avila, who designed the curriculum and leads the K-2 program at the SLC in Austin.
“Many of them love dinosaurs already. So I just wanted to show them the behind-the-scenes of how we know about the dinosaurs from paleontology,” said Alvarez. “How was the world doing during the dinosaurs? What were dinosaurs like? We have so much information about them that even though we were not there.”
For Black History Month, Alvarez also made sure to include the story of Lisa White, a renowned paleontologist that started by studying geology and then moved to paleontology and is now the Director of Education and Outreach at the University of California Museum of Paleontology.
“We see a Black woman that was a paleontologist that has made a lot of impact and is still alive,” said Alvarez, who said she wanted to give students a role model while they were learning. “This is a real thing and this is a profession they can look forward to if they want to investigate more about dinosaurs and their bones.”
Now Alvarez’s class has moved on to learn about the ecosystems that dinosaurs lived in and the extinction events that led to their demise.
Geology
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Students created clay models of the earth. Photo by Angelica Juarez for Project Exploration.
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The earth is made up of the crust, mantle and core. And understanding what goes on beneath the surface can also help students understand the environment and the world around them. Photo by Angelica Juarez for Project Exploration.
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3-D clay models help students understand the layers of the earth in a tactile way and make for fun demonstrations! Photo by Angelica Juarez for Project Exploration.
In the 3-5 curriculum, students explored geology and learned about planets and the layers of earth. Ruvimbo Munzeiwa designed that curriculum this week students explored natural hazards like earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes.
“We learned about the planet: the earth, the layers of the earth, how the earth functions and how we can take care of it,” said Munzeiwa. And this week, “with the natural hazards they learn what happens when we don’t necessarily take care of the earth very well.
In one project, students learned about weathering, which is the effect that the environment has on rocks and materials.
For example, students will use vinegar and limestone to simulate how acid rain degrades limestone structures. This resembles a current real-life crisis at Promontory Point where community members are trying to preserve the limestone steps, which have been weathered by the crashing waves of Lake Michigan.
Students also simulated a tsunami with a panorama and learned how trees play a crucial protective role in coastal communities.
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In this panorama the bioshield, a barrier made of trees is not intact, so the soil around the house is soaked and the shoreline is collapsing. Photo by Ben Cummings for Project Exploration.
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In this model, the trees form a bioshield that protects and retains the soil---much like the effect of trees in a real tsunami. Photo by Ben Cummings for Project Exploration.
Munzeiwa wanted to expose students to the study of geology and the work of geologists and geoscientists to help them see if that was something they wanted to pursue in the future.
“I feel like this is a bunch of science that we don’t really talk about with kids a lot,” said Munzeiwa. “Especially if they are interested with the environment around them and how it works—how some of these things that they see on TV work—and they might say, ‘okay, what happens when there’s a flood?’”
While this article focused on learning in the STEM Learning Center at Bethel New Life in Austin, the same curriculum is also taking place in our school sites. Ask someone from PE how this week went and stay tuned for regular curriculum previews and program updates!