STEMS^2 Unit Musings & Ideas for Community Collaboration

During our discussion today of the rubric for our STEMS^2 units, I realized that there were many more dimensions to the unit than I considered when I did my post last week and thought I would expand on a few here while my thoughts are fresh.

Community Involvement in Multiple Ways
I especially liked that my breakout group (#1) discussed in detail not only how different types of community partnerships could be and how we would also want the community to be involved in the culminating project or presentation that students would do as their summative assessment.  At our recent WASC visit, one of the areas of improvement is for us to publicize more the good things that our students are doing.  This was geared more towards the community outside of our school, but I think it is important to include students in other grade levels, families, teachers, and stake-holders such as alumni and Governing Board members as well because those are the people who represent your school and can share with others about what is being done.

Seeking and Forming Community Partnerships
One concern raised when we were writing descriptions in the STEMS^2 rubric tonight was that often it is difficult to find community partners that are appropriate for the units that we may be planning, but several people voiced great ideas of where we should look beyond the place we would usually look (community organizations and businesses), including parents of students, teachers who have interests outside of school (as we have seen within our group, we have many talents besides being great teachers), alumni, and so on.  If these stakeholders know that innovative and multidisciplinary lessons are being taught at your school, they may be more likely to offer their expertise and resources.  As mentioned during our learning journeys, we have many kupuna, who can contribute to learning in many different ways.

Ongoing Experiences with Community Partnerships
Last week I met with a UH professor who approached me two years ago with an idea to connect my 7th grade students (her daughter was my student at the time) to students at a school that she had visited on a small island in Papua New Guinea during her research on frogs there in the summer.  This was something that I had not previously thought of, but we have since formed a relationship with the teachers and students at this school and she and I met recently to discuss our plans for this year.

In the first year, we started small, with Dr. Butler doing presentations about the frogs she studies and the way of life in Papua New Guinea for my students to compare to their lives here.  The students then exchanged letters.

Letters from Papua New Guinea students to ULS students:

 

Letters to Papua New Guinea students from ULS students

Last year we did surveys of Biodiversity and compared the foods we eat here with those common in Papua New Guinea.  Below are some photos of some of the things that my students have done with Dr. Butler that contributed to the exchange between our students.

Sweep Net Sampling

Quadrat Sampling

We have even gotten her graduate students involved as well as my Research Science high school students who happen to have class right after the 7th graders who were interested in learning about sampling techniques.

Examples of insects that were captured.  Next students identified these to the level of Insect order and the researchers helped them to construct graphs that were used to compare biodiversity between several locations on campus.

   

Last Thoughts

This year we are looking to write up our curriculum so that the protocols we use can be shared with other teachers such as my new collaborator in Washington state, another teacher who is also interested in Biodiversity.  Since this is perfect timing with our STEMS^2 unit, I think that this will be my primary focus for my Plan B project and am looking forward to developing these rather isolated lessons into a cohesive unit plan and to integrate more of the other STEMS^2 layers of place into the plans.  I already have the 7th grade English teacher (who has been helping students with their letters) on board and will work on setting up meetings with the 7th grade Social Studies and Mathematics teachers to see how we can all work together and what this unit might tie-in to what they will be teaching in the Spring semester.