SCP 2010 Fall Workshop

On November 9, 2010, the Scientist in the Classroom Partnership Program held its fall workshop for science teaching fellows (STFs) and their partner teachers. At the workshop, STFs Anna Cummings at the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, Jenifer Lawrie at Bailey Middle School, and Kimberly Mulligan at Stratford High School each delivered a 20-minute presentation on a 7th grade level explaining their current research.

Jenifer Lawrie led the group in dissecting cows’ eyes. Scientist-teacher teams got a close-up look at the anatomy of an eye to increase the understanding of how the eye functions. Ms. Lawrie plans to demonstrate the cow eye dissection in Panthea Bryant-Jones’s 8th grade classes at Bailey Middle School later this month.

The featured guest speaker was Aaron Deter-Wolf, an archaeologist with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Division of Archaeology. The spellbinding presentation provided an overview of archaeological sites in Middle Tennessee. Archaeologists study prehistoric and historic human remains. Tennessee has a long history of human occupation going back 12,000 years ago to the Paleo-Indians. Most recently, the May 2010 flood in Nashville eroded the banks of the Cumberland River exposing dozens of Native American grave sites. Even though it is illegal in Tennessee to disturb grave sites, looters quickly moved in to unearth artifacts before archaeologist could survey, record and preserve the human history present in the numerous sites along the river.

Following the workshop, Andrea Hawkins, a partner teacher at Head Middle Magnet School, shared, "We had an excellent lab this week! I have gained a new insight as it relates to the history of Tennessee. We are studying fossils in class and used many of the facts we learned from Mr. Aaron Deter-Wolf in our presentation to the students."

Hawkins' STF, Oleg Kovtun, was equally impressed with Mr. Deter-Wolf's presentation and was excited to share the information with the class. He explained, "We made cupcake fossils with chocolate batter to represent soil and used huge dried cherries, slivered almonds, and dry pinto beans. The students had to locate the fossils by making quarter slices and determine the relative age of the fossil using rulers."