Appendix 2-School Yard Ecology For Elementary School Teachers

School Yard Ecology For Elementary School Teachers
What is SYEFEST?

SYEFEST is a national project funded by the National Science Foundation. The ultimate goal of SYEFEST is to promote quality ecology education for elementary students. The school yard is a focus of SYEFEST because it is a place where students can study local organisms and environments directly. The more immediate goal of SYEFEST is to support elementary teachers in using their school yards as a laboratory for teaching ecology.

SYEFEST involves fifteen sites across the country. Each site has a lead teacher and a lead ecologist who conducted a ten-day summer workshop for local teachers. The activities presented today result from work done at the Holland, Michigan SYEFEST site, during the 1994 SYEFEST Summer Institute.

Why use the school yard?

School yards have tremendous, untapped potential for many reasons.

School yards are accessible.

School yards are familiar to both teachers and children.

Trips to the school yard are free.

Many children are currently unfamiliar with the creatures that they impact and with which they interact the most.

School yards are mini-ecosystem models of real human impact.

Outdoor management may be easier on "home ground".

Why teach ecology?

Ecology is interdisciplinary. It shows students connections between the sciences. Because ecology is a study of connections and inter-relationships, it also is a model of how we want our children to learn science, by being part of an interdependent learning community.

Ecology is also relevant. Many critical issues facing the world today involve at least some ecological principles. Good earth citizens need to be informed citizens. Students need to realize that ecology is more than recycling.

What is inquiry-based science?

Inquiry-based science is a model for doing science. Children conduct open-ended investigations that begin with a question. Inquiry-based science is student driven.

1. Children generate testable questions. Most questions are comparative.

2. Children design the method to answer the question.

3. Children make predictions.

4. After using their method to answer the question, children evaluate results by comparing the results to the predictions.

5. Children generate spin-off questions based on initial investigations.

6. Repeat to step one.

Inquiry-based science promotes higher level thinking and aligns with the science investigation section of the new MEAP.