TU to help third-graders understand our changing earth

Education professor, interns arrange outdoor science learning event for Harford County third-graders

 

Approximately 125 third grade students from Abingdon Elementary School in Harford County will be participating in a special science learning event at Harford Glen—an environmental education center in Bel Air run by the Harford County Public Schools system (http://www.hcps.org/harfordglen/ )—on Monday, November 17, from 9:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. (there is a rain date of Tuesday, November 25.)

This event, hosted by Pamela Lottero-Perdue, assistant professor of science education and 16 of her Elementary Education/Special Education (EESE) interns, coincides with American Education Week (November 16-22). EESE is a TU program taught at Harford Community College’s HEAT center that trains teachers who live in and around Harford County and will remain there to teach.

Lottero-Perdue and four EESE intern groups will create stations that involve extending what the interns are teaching the third graders during "The Changing Earth" unit. “One group will have the children model sediment deposition as it occurs at Harford Glen, using sand/water tables,” says Lottero-Perdue. “The interns will then take the kids on a short hike to look for evidence of real sediment deposition.” Another station will get the students involved in using levels and such to map out contour lines and construct a topographic map for a hill at Harford Glen.

“This is a bit of work above and beyond what we normally do with the third-graders,” says Lottero-Perdue, “but the interns and I are excited about taking the concepts we discuss in class and showing them in the field.”

Lottero-Perdue hopes the event will live beyond those particular third graders and that day. She and her interns will coordinate with Mark Herzog, assistant supervisor of science and director of Harford Glen, to compile the five-station activities into lesson plans that Herzog’s center can share with other third grade classes in Harford County.