June 25, 1994

To: Laura Rogers-Castro
From: Alan R. Berkowitz
Subject: SYEFEST Summer Institute Session

I am delighted that you will be working with Linda Olsen, my Lead Teacher partner, and me in our Summer Institute in schoolyard ecology. Enclosed please find some information that might help you understand the Schoolyard Ecology for Elementary School Teachers (SYEFEST) project and our part of it. Included are:

1. a four-page summary of the nationwide project,
   
2. an IES newsletter featuring the SYEFEST project,
   
3. a tentative agenda for the two week Summer Institute here that starts Monday, June 27,
   
4. a copy of the tasks we'll be assigning to the teachers for the project, and
   
5. a brochure about the Institute of Ecosystem Studies (IES) for your information.
   

As you can see, our aim is to empower the teachers to develop their own skills and comfort with studying ecology outside. This requires overcoming a number of barriers — the feeling that you have to know what an organism is (species name) before you can study it, the fear of dangerous plants and insects, the lack of direct experience in conducting research (any kind in general, ecology in particular), the unfamiliarity of basic ecological ideas and research methods, etc. Once they gain some of their own experience doing ecological studies in their own or nearby schoolyards, we will help them develop activities to use with their own students. Please note that most of our teachers work with K-2 graders — thus, both teachers and students have little science background and are more likely to be successful at simple comparative studies or very simple experiments. However, all students and teachers can easily learn and enjoy the process of science, asking questions, devising ways of getting answers and then going out to see what they come up with.

For your session we would like you to consider focusing on only a couple of objectives:

1. Giving teachers hands-on experience sampling, collecting and identifying insects.
   
2. Helping teachers develop and then carry out simple comparative or experimental studies starting with a clear question and/or hypothesis which can be addressed within the time frame of your session (a real challenge, I know!). As is probably clear from our title, the emphasis should be on ecological questions.
   
3. Having teachers either start a simple insect collection they can use to identify insects they find in their own schoolyard in the future, and/or showing them to how to use simple identification guides that you might recommend.
   

Thank you for your enthusiastic interest in our project. I look forward to working with you.