Utilizing Your Local Ecosystems as Laboratories for Investigations

Learning

Utilizing Your Local Ecosystems as Laboratories for Investigations

Two educators looking at a forest ground.

 

Southeast Region (MA) 2022 Summer Professional Development Institute for Grade 6-12 Educators

Does taking field trips, conducting experiments, learning directly from scientists and STEM professionals, and connecting with fellow educators from across the state sound like a fun way to spend a week this summer?

Join the Wade Institute for Science Education and our collaborating partners Lloyd Center for the Environment, New Bedford Whaling Museum, and Round the Bend Farm for a unique, graduate level course. Engage in hands-on, minds-on, inquiry-based investigations and increase your STEM content knowledge! Connect with scientists, engineers, and STEM professionals, and work with educators at our collaborating partner institutions to explore real-world phenomena through standards-aligned, hands-on, minds-on investigations that you can bring back to your classroom. 

Explore how to integrate field research and data collection into your science curriculum. Experience multiple entry points for hands-on, place-based science and participate in collaborative projects with professional scientists. Investigate wetland, estuary, marine, and forest habitats and participate in authentic data collection. Consider how this data can tell us stories about these living laboratories and the plants and animals that dwell there.

Throughout the course, instructors will weave pedagogy through the science content, highlighting ways to shift your lessons towards inquiry, incorporate the Science & Engineering Practices, and implement phenomena-based units. Earn Professional Development Points and optional graduate credit while you connect and collaborate with educators, scientists, engineers, and STEM professionals. You’ll leave the course with investigations to bring your new science and engineering knowledge into your classroom!

Learn more and register at the Wade Institute for Science Education website!