Guy’s Poker Night:  Texas Hold’em
Monday, May 21 at 6:30 - until you run out of cash
At The Bunnery Restaurant

Beer and chips and maybe more
$50 “buy in” - Keep “buying in” until your
money runs out! Bring your buddies if you want.
All proceeds to benefit the 2006-07 Journeys School Annual Fund
Tell Tony (Labbé) if you’re coming tony@bunnery.com or

734-0075. Space is limited. Pay at the door – cash, checks…or your car?

Girls' Night Out!

Enjoy fine wine, hors d’oeuvres, sushi by Nikai and titillating conversation on Wednesday, May 23rd 6:30-9:30pm. This event will benefit the Journeys School Annual Fund. Please click here for the invitation and more details!

Thanks to all the Grandparents and Special Friends!

Last Friday, we were happy to welcome 35 Grandparents (1 Great-grandmother!) and special friends to the Journeys School for a campus tour, classroom activities and a delicious lunch. It was delightful to see the families learn and have fun together! Please mark your calendars for next year’s event which will be Friday, September 28, 2007. We hope to have even more special friends and family members experience the wonderful community of Journeys School students and teachers.

A Workshop on May 18 and 19, 2007: Gender Differences and How the Research Informs Our Work

Location: Jackson Campus Education Center

Presenters: Dr. JoAnn Deak and Dr. Michael Thompson

8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., May 18

8:30 a.m. – Noon, May 19

For more information and/or to register contact Bonnie at bonnie.jones@tetonscience.org

A Community Presentation on May 18, 2007: Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Will Be Girls

Location: Center Theater, Jackson Center for the Arts

7:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Featuring: Dr. Joann Deak and Dr. Michael Thompson

Free Admission

307.733.1327 ext. 1108

Both events are open to parents, teachers and other community members who are interested in learning more about this topic from two well-known experts. Dr. Deak and Dr. Thompson are psychologists, school consultants and authors.

Congratulations!!

Congratulations to Syler Peralta-Ramos for winning Second Place in his age group and Sascha Peralta-Ramos for winning Honorable Mention in the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Design competition. The winning designs will be on display at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and the first through third place designs will tour the state through April 2008!!!  Great job!!!

Community Lunch Wednesday

To facilitate activities for an on-campus workshop this Friday, we have moved the Community Lunch to Wednesday, May 16. Parent volunteers are still needed for serving! Please send a regular lunch with your child for Friday.

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May Lunch Menu 

May 16th

Tuna Salad on Kaiser Roll with Cucumbers & Sprouts

Red Lentil Soup

Carrot & Raisin Salad

Potato chips

Fruit & Dessert

May 25th

Pizza

Spinach Salad with Honey-Mustard Vinaigrette

Fruit & Dessert

Enrollment Agreements

Enrollment Agreements will be sent out this week and are due back by May 25 to finalize your child's enrollment for 2007/08.

Graduation and Community Celebration

Journeys School's graduation ceremony will take place 5:30 - 6:30 pm on campus on June 13th. The traditional end-of-school-year potluck celebration will occur following the ceremony, 6:30 - 7:30 pm. The potluck schedule is listed below, and please bring a serving for 8-10 people. If you have more than one child at Journeys School, please select your dish based on the youngest child.

PreK - side dish or salad

K-2 - main dish

3-5 - main dish

MS - dessert

US - side dish or salad

Pre-Kindergarten

Announcements
Thank Yous
Thank you to Kathy Kehr for assisting us during lunch when we were still short one teacher. It was really helpful to have your support during these times.

Learning Team Meetings
Thank you to those parents that had to be rescheduled for their learning team meeting. Erin really appreciates your flexibility and patience while she was covering for her team of teachers. Learning team meetings will resume this week and if you have not yet been rescheduled for your learning team meeting Erin will touch base with you during the beginning of this week.

Community Lunch Switch
There will be no community lunch this Friday. We will have Community lunch on Wednesday May 16th instead. Please mark your calendars and plan to pack your child a lunch on Friday May 18th. Thank you.

Curricular Updates
Mother’s Day Cards
Pre-K students have been learning about and producing recycled paper for the last two weeks in preparation for making Mother’s Day cards. Children worked together to create over forty sheets of recycled paper in multiple colors. Each piece is crafted by a 3, 4 or 5 year-old. Children were encouraged to write their names on their cards and some even rose to the challenge of writing out “I love you”. Students who are not as naturally drawn to writing can be inspired by meaningful moments like these. We hope that you enjoyed your cards! Children were very genuine and individual in their responses to our question, “What do you love about your mom?” Some responses include:
“I love that she gives me lots of kisses.” –Wilson Bucholz
“I love her because she is my mom.”—Warren Levy
“I love to travel with my mom.”—Sophia Tozzi
“I love it when my mom plays with me.”—Helena Quinn
“I love that my mom tucks me in every night and reads to me.”—Trevor Watson

We hope to continue making recycling paper in new shapes, colors and designs.

The Doctor's Office: Learning How to Stabilize an Injury.

Doctors assembled in the office for a morning study lab last week. Their supervising resident, Charlie, demonstrated how to properly dress and stabilize a joint injury and a broken bone. Students examined x-rays to identify which parts of the body were broken. After some practice they opened the clinic doors to the general public. Children exhibited compassion and empathy as they treated each patient. They were gentle in their touch and firm with their instructions. Through dramatic play children construct knowledge about experiences that they have had or seen. They develop higher order thinking skills to treat imaginative ailments and conditions. In the doctor’s office children are challenged to slow down, be gentle, show compassion and solve a problem.

Announcements
Lia Turiano Named a Wolf, Lobo

Congratulations to Lia Turiano. She won the wolf naming contest with the name Lobo (Spanish word for wolf). Teton Science Schools’ Wildlife Expeditions and the Rusty Parrot joined forces to sponsor a Yellowstone wolf collar for the winter 2007/08 season. They needed to name the wolf and offered that naming opportunity to Jackson Hole area elementary students (K-5). The student with the winning name entry gets a ‘hands on’ classroom wolf presentation from a Wildlife Expeditions Biologist (Kevin Taylor). Thanks to Lia’s creativity, Kevin will be sharing his wolf expertise with our classroom. We have not scheduled his visit yet and will let you all know as soon as we do.

Thank You

A big, huge thanks to Jen Foley for the healthy fruit kabob and cheese and cracker snack she provided for our students and for us! DELICIOUS!

Thanks to the Speers family for washing all our dirty rags. Whatever would we do without clean rags around here!

Thanks to all the fabulous grandparents that visited our classroom last Friday for grandparent’s day! Students enjoyed all of your collective wisdom!

Thanks to all the parents who came to our curriculum night last Tuesday. Betsy and Jean shared information about the upcoming journey. Journey information packets were also sent home in folders last week. If you did not receive a packet, please email or call Betsy immediately.

LTM’s

Thanks to all parents for participating in Learning Team Meetings. Though LTM’s can be difficult to schedule and add to a busy day, they are also an invaluable and enjoyable time to share student work, challenges and successes. If you have not yet had your Learning Team Meeting, please call your child’s advisor soon so we may schedule a time to meet.

Trimester Reports
The winter trimester reports went out via email right before spring break. If you are having trouble accessing reports on your computers or do not have a computer, please contact your child’s advisor. This is a new system for all of us and we need to iron out all the kinks. Thanks for you patience as we try to save huge amounts of paper!

Wyoming Reads Celebration Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 15th

1st graders will be attending a special Wyoming Reads Celebration tomorrow! The Governor has declared Tuesday May 15th, Wyoming Literacy Day! In honor, 1st graders will join Teton County 1st graders at a special celebration at Jackson Elementary School. We’ll leave around 11:30 and will be back for regular pickup! Festivities include pizza lunch, (compliments of Teton County Library and Teton County School District), reading with celebrities, and the grand finale’… when students will receive their very own hard-cover book! Thanks to the Sue Jorgensen Foundation in Casper, 1st graders from every county in Wyoming will receive a book… over 7000 to be distributed across the state. Congratulations 1st graders!

Curricular Updates

Falcon Math with Kalen

The Falcons are swiftly embracing mathematical concepts and skills, enabling them to soar with confidence! With a focus in geometry and attributes, students are fascinated while exploring 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes, playing attribute games, and constructing designs and patterns with manipulatives. Students identified polygons, rhombuses, trapezoids, hexagons, and triangles, which inspired a “Shape Art” illustration project. With pattern block stickers, students created a design and measured the perimeter in nonstandard units. Three-dimensional shapes were recently introduced, such as spheres, rectangular prisms, cones, pyramids, and cylinders. On a scavenger hunt, students found and investigated many of these shapes in the K-2 building. Throughout our geometry unit, students continue to practice mental arithmetic, coin combinations, telling time, and measuring. Our next math unit is dedicated to building mental math skills through money transactions and exploring fractions. The Falcons are embracing the wind currents to stay on course throughout their mathematical discovery and mastery!

Ermine Literacy with Bari
It’s been a super year so far with the Ermine Literacy group! Recently, they’ve explored the fun-loving Pippi Longstocking and her friends, Tommy, Annika, Mr. Nilsson (her monkey), and of course, Pippi’s horse, known as just that… Pippi’s horse! Students worked hard in their very own ‘Adventures with Pippi Longstocking’ journals. A couple of journal activities included choosing adjectives to describe characters, creating Venn diagrams to compare and contrast Pippi to themselves, sketching each character, and answering comprehension questions about the book which included reflecting on funny and serious parts of the book. Creating an acrostic poems using each letter of Pippi’s (rather long) name, researching the author Astrid Lindgren and choosing a few interesting facts to write about her were a couple more activities in the journal. Thanks to all of the friends and family members who came to our K-2 character study celebration! Our reader’s theatre performance was a huge success! Students were super excited, knew their lines and were true actors and actresses.
The K-2 recently went to ‘Poetry Alive’ at the Teton County Library last Friday and the Ermine literacy group students were especially inspired! It was the perfect transition into our focus on poetry for the spring trimester. Recently, students have written a few different types of poems, one of them being haikus to honor their grandparents. They also wrote a special Mother’s Day poem to accompany their beautiful portraits of Mom for her special day. Thanks for all the support and keep reading at home!

Announcements

Tutoring
Two Journeys Middle School students have approached Grades 3-5 to express an interest in tutoring an elementary school student. If you think your child would benefit from working with a tutor, please contact your child’s advisor for more specific information about the Middle School volunteers.

Pinedale Journey Payment
Third and fourth grade parents, please remember to send in a check for $85.00 for this week’s Journey to Pinedale. Checks should be sent in by Tuesday, and should be payable to the Teton Science Schools or Journeys School. Thank you.

Thank You
Thank you to all of the Grades 3-5 families for joining us for Learning Team Meetings this month. Thank you to all of the grandparents who joined us for the first Journeys School Grandparents’ Day last Friday. Thank you to the Terkovich family for donating sunscreen to the Grades 3-5 classroom. We greatly appreciate the donation!

Curriculum Updates

Third and Fourth Grade Journey to Pinedale
The third and fourth grade students will travel to Pinedale for their spring extended Journey this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Please stay tuned to subsequent issues of Basecamp News for updates about their exciting Journey. While the third and fourth grade students are in Pinedale, the fifth graders will be working hard to put the finishing touches on their Capstone projects in preparation for their Capstone presentations next week.

Fifth Grade Capstone Presentations
Fifth grade Capstone presentations will take place in the Grades 3-5 Learning Lab next Monday, May 21 through Friday, May 25. Presentations will occur between 8:30 and 10:00 in the morning. Each student will have 15 minutes to share his or her learning. Parents, other family members, grandparents, relatives, and friends are invited to attend. Faculty and students from other grade levels have also been invited. Presentations are scheduled as follows:
Monday, May 21: Asa, Tara, Shelley, Lyons
Tuesday, May 22: Sascha, Ella, Connor
Wednesday, May 23: Nicole, Tige, Ariella
Thursday, May 24: Ruby, Melissa, Brooke
Friday, May 25: Daniela, Charlotte, Faith

Writing and Reading Workshop
Fresh energy has been apparent in the Grades 3-5 reading and writing workshops this month. Our new writing workshop unit, “Writing Fiction,” has captured the imaginations of our students. During this unit, students will brainstorm an idea for a fiction story and create a “story mountain” of that idea. Students will draft their stories using their story mountains as roadmaps. Students will learn to develop their characters’ internal and external traits, working to create interesting, believable and multi-dimensional characters. Teachers will push students to story-tell rather than summarize, to add dialogue, and to rework paragraphs. This unit will capitalize on the students’ zeal for fiction, encouraging them to do more revising than they have ever done before. Once a draft is complete, we will emphasize looking back at the story and making substantial revisions. The students are extremely excited to write fiction stories, and we cannot wait to see what their imaginations produce.

In reading workshop, our new unit is entitled, “Engaging in Interesting Discussions about Books.” During this unit, students will read texts in pairs or in small groups. Students will learn how to set appropriate reading goals and how to manage problems that might come up within their book club, including, “What will we do if someone reads ahead?” Students will learn how to carry on engaging and in-depth conversations about their books. They will learn to explain their ideas by using examples from the text. Students will also practice asking interesting questions of their peers during book club time. Though each student will participate in a book club, we encourage every student to continue reading another book independently. Please continue to send your child’s independent reading books to school as we will continue to make time for independent reading during this unit.

In other reading and writing news, Grades 3-5 is proud to announce that third grader Noelle Huser was recognized as a Young Authors award winner for third grade nonfiction in Teton County. Noelle won for her story, “The Bad Late Plane Problem.” Noelle’s award was presented last Wednesday night at the Teton County School Board meeting. Her story will now be submitted to the state level competition.

Announcements

Thank you

Thank you Janet Frisella, Jana Roice, Jill Wright, Brent Blue and Jack Shea for attending our Thursday parent communication brainstorm. Your insight will help us better the links between students and parents and teachers.

Thank you also Arturo Peralto Ramos and Jill Wright for volunteering to chaperone the student trip to see “Alice” at the Center for the Arts last Thursday, performed by a acting troop from the Kennedy Center.

Curricular Updates

Spanish
Over the past few weeks in Spanish, we have been learning about health and nutrition, and how they are often related to economics. During class we discussed different elements of healthy lifestyle before learning important words for the doctor's office. During our longer multi-age blocks on Fridays, we have been discussing poverty and its impact on nutrition, health, and quality of life. The students participated in several activities that helped show the impact of poverty in the world and how they are capable of making a difference with their actions and choices. On Thursday, May 17th, the students will have a test on food, markets, nutrition, and health. To practice at home, ask your student how she or he feels (¿Cómo se siente Ud.?) or have him or her explain the impact of poverty on choices related to food, water, and health.

Science
We continue to explore venues where humans are seeking balance within the ecosystem through management strategies. Last week students created pristine ecosystems, designing the topography, water ways and subsequent vegetation patterns. Students were able to calculate the number of wolves, grizzlies and moose that their systems could sustain. Each group was then given a development challenge (ski resort, mining, resort town, park designation, ranching) and based on the challenge parameters, they altered their ecosystem to best support their large mammals. In addition, Embere Hall from the Conservation Research Center, discussed the different CRC research studies involving development and songbird populations, magpie predation and elk migration corridors. This week students will focus on pollution issues, the different sources of pollution in our ecosystems and the strategies we are trying to use to minimize the effect. Ask your child to explain some of the ideas they have about the major challenges to our ecosystem from development.

Life Skills Reflection
This week in Life Skills, we discussed both the internal and external pressures of adolescence. Students were incredibly insightful during our brainstorm. Afterwards, students reflected silently with writing about particular topics that struck them. With the permission of one student I share the following excerpt:

“Usually kids our age are trying to figure out who they are. But it can be hard to balance social stuff, activities, and still get good grades. Some are very good at it and others are not. I don’t know, but it is probably really hard for teachers to keep kids motivated all the time. Some kids feel too pressured to get good grades and end up doing worse because they are under too much stress. I think it is important for parents to be involved but not to over pressure.”

Social Science

Middle school social science is wrapping up our investigation of the American Environmental Movement. Students recently learned how uniquely American literature by authors such as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and Nathanial Hawthorne, and uniquely American art by artists such as Thomas Cole, Thomas Eakins, William Henry Jackson and Thomas Moran, helped inform developing environmental attitudes in the Nineteenth century.

Last week, students received their final project in the unit. To complete the assignment, students have a choice of projects— from writing a paper to creating a map of public land in Jackson Hole to investigating the formation of Yellowstone National Park. Ask your student which project they have chosen.

Considerable class time will be devoted to completing this project. Along with demonstrating knowledge of the American Environmental Movement, students will be guided in identifying, locating and using resources. This project wasn't designed to be completed primarily at home, but students may have to use homework time. Please contact Karl if you need information, assistance, clarification, etc. karl.vansycle@journeysschool.org or at 733-1327 ext. 1124.

Announcements

Spring Journey

The upper school spring journey will take place the week of May 21-25. Students will leave Jackson Hole the morning of Monday, May 21 and travel to Boise, ID. This spring we have worked toward answering the essential question: How do we change what we observe? While on the journey in Boise students will be asked to make observations and analyses about how Boise has changed from a small western settlement of the 19th century to a viable industrial and culturally diverse city in the 21st century. We will return to Journeys School by end of school on Friday, May 25. Details of the trip will follow in a letter home. The fee for the journey is $100. If your family has not paid the fee, please do so as soon as possible. Checks can be made to Journeys School. Please contact Kjera Strom for more information.

R.A.P. = Random Acts of Poetry

May is National Poetry Month. Librarians at the Teton County Library have organized a program called Random Acts of Poetry, or R.A.P. The purpose of R.A.P. is to excited students about writing and reciting poetry, recording their recitations, and posting them online in a poetry recitation contest. There are many prizes to be awarded to those who show originality and enthusiasm for their work. Students can register to compete May 5 – 12 at the library. The contest coincides with the study of Jewish poet Yehuda Amichai’s work in English classes and next month’s visit of former US poet laureate Billy Collins, also sponsored by the Teton County Library and its Foundation. All upper school students are encouraged to participate.

Drunk Driving Education

Upper school students will attend a dramatic interpretation of the dangers of drunk driving sponsored by the Jackson Police Department on Thursday, May 17 at Jackson Hole High School. Drug and alcohol use and abuse education can not be overemphasized in high school. The upper school faculty thanks the Police Department for offering this important opportunity. Dismissal from school that day will happen at Jackson Hole High School. Students can be arranged to be picked up at JHHS; they can return to Journeys; we can also drive students to the Albertson’s bus stop after the presentation. We will make sure we know where each student is going before we leave to attend the presentation.

Curricular Updates

Upper School Spanish

As our Journeys School community races through spring trimester, the question we are attempting to answer is “How do we change what we observe?” Our Spanish class will look beyond our local environment to make connections with the greater Spanish-speaking world. Each upper school student has chosen to be the “ambassador” for a Spanish-speaking country. Students will be given the opportunity to explore distant communities through a project as well as weekly assignments. We began working with these projects May 7 and will conclude with presentations June 4-7. This project fulfills several objectives. Students will discover connections between their local community and a global partner. Students will probe a variety of sources for information concerning current environmental issues in their chosen country. Students will understand basic geography of Central and South America. Students will investigate other cultures to answer our essential question. In addition, students will continue with weekly grammar and vocabulary quizzes to increase their linguistic foundation. Ask an upper school student about the current events or ecological concerns in “their” country!

Advanced Spanish

In Advanced Spanish, we have been immersing ourselves in the poetry of several famous poets, including Gabriela Mistral, Octavio Paz and Pablo Neruda. Anastasia is reflecting upon her experiences on her Capstone Journey by creating her own book of poetry using the specific vocabulary and nature-based metaphors we have examined. From poetry, we will explore the elements of short stories and read several exemplary stories that stretch perceptions of reality and imagination. We will conclude the year with one final novel, Frederico Garcia Lorca’s Bodas de Sangre (Blood Weddings). Daily grammar drills increase fluency and stamina for verb conjugations and the intricacies of the Spanish language. Anastasia will be prepared for wherever her Spanish studies take her next. Buena suerte!

               Science Education for the 21st Century

By Aaron Nydam       

We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture and power is going to blow up in our faces. - Carl Sagan

According to Carl Sagan and many other strong voices in the scientific community, the teaching and learning of science has met a critical moment. In a recent Education Week (February 23, 2006) John Merrow provided a commentary on recent developments in science education, entitled “Unlearning Bad Science.” Merrow argues that the “so-so” performance by American youth on the latest national assessments will fuel the expansion of the No Child Left Behind Act, an act that he believes will only make matters worse: more rote memorization of material that’s easy to test on multiple-choice exams, and “dumbing down” the science curriculum driving competent educators to distraction or other occupations. Merrow comments, “All of this is obscuring what may be the greater challenge – unlearning bad science”. Within this conversation, a few practical questions arise in our efforts at Journeys School: How do we address the unlearning of “bad science?” and, how do we continue to foster learning “good science” in order to improve science literacy?

Within the science education community, establishing a common vision of science education for the 21st century has not been a simple task, nor has clearly defining what exactly “good science” is. The greatest challenge has been overcoming the misconceptions that pervade in students, teachers and parents. Reviewing the literature on how students interpret and understand concepts in science, evidence exists that even the most able and academically successful students often harbor misconceptions about scientific phenomena (Miller, 1996). In order to provide a more realistic view of science and improve scientific literacy, we must begin by focusing on misconceptions.

William F. McComas (1996) reexamines what we as a society hold as true when it comes to the “nature of science.” Although many “myths” originate from an educational attempt to make sense of the discipline, McComas summarizes ten traditional views held by both educators and students about science that together block scientific understanding. The myths range from Myth 2: A hypothesis is an educated guess; Myth 6: Science is more procedural than creative, to Myth 9: Experiments are the principle route to scientific knowledge. These misconceptions have created a roadblock in establishing a common vision. To address these common myths and misconceptions in science, McComas argues for continual reforms from the traditional conceptions of science teaching.
Within the last decade, the National Research Council (NRC) has taken the lead in this reform and defining the future direction of science education within the National Science Education Standards, “Helping teachers deal with their own misconceptions and helping students apply knowledge and skills is basic to the teaching standards that comprise the NSES” (NRC, 2000). To begin, the NRC identified four major goals within science education stating that students in K-12 schools should:
1. Experience the richness and excitement of knowing about and understanding the natural world.
2. Use appropriate scientific processes and principles in making personal decisions.
3. Engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about matters of scientific and technological concern.
4. Increase students’ economic productivity through the use of knowledge, understanding and skills of the scientifically literate person in their careers.

These four goals are rarely argued and widely accepted within the science education community. But, it is the implementation of teaching strategies and assessment that remains questioned. To guide reform and implementation, the National Science Education Standards provides a vision through a list of recommendations based on emphases (NRC, 2000). The following tables introduce a few of the recommended changes in teaching (Table 1), assessment (Table 2), content (Table 3) and the implementation of inquiry-based learning in the classroom (Table 4).

Table 1. Examples of Changes in Science Teaching
Less Emphasis On
• Treating all the students alike and responding to the group as whole
• Rigidly following curriculum
• Focusing on the acquisition of information
• Presenting scientific knowledge through lecture, text, and demonstration.
• Asking for recitation of acquired knowledge
• Testing for factual information at the end of the unit or chapter
• Maintaining responsibility and authority
• Supporting competition

More Emphasis On
• Understanding and responding to individual interests, strengths, experiences, and needs
• Focusing on student understanding and the use of scientific knowledge, ideas, and the inquiry process
• Guiding students in active and extended scientific inquiry
• Providing opportunities for scientific discussion and debate among students
• Supporting a classroom community with cooperation, shared responsibility and respect

Table 2. Examples of Changes in Science Assessment
Less Emphasis On
• Assessing what is easily measured
• Assessing discrete knowledge
• Assessing to learn what the students do not know
• Assessing only achievement
• End-of-term assessments by teachers

More Emphasis On
• Assessing rich, well structured knowledge
• Assessing scientific understanding and reasoning
• Assessing to learn what students do understand
• Students engaged in ongoing assessment of their work and that of others

Table 3. Examples of changes in Science Content
Less Emphasis On
• Knowing scientific facts and information
• Studying subject matter disciplines (physical, life and earth science) for their own sake
• Separating science knowledge and science process
• Covering many science topics
• Implementing inquiry as a set of processes

More Emphasis On
• Learning subject matter disciplines in the context of inquiry, technology, science in personal and social perspectives, and the history and nature of science
• Integrating all aspects of science content
• Studying a few fundamental science concepts
• Implementing inquiry as instructional strategies, abilities, and ideas to be learned

Table 4. Examples of changes in Teaching Science as Inquiry
Less Emphasis On
• Activities that demonstrate and verify science content
• Investigations confined to one class period
• Process skills out of context
• Emphasis on individual process skills, such as observation and inference
• Science as exploration and experimentation
• Providing answers to questions
• Individuals and groups of students analyzing and synthesizing data without defending a conclusion
• Doing few investigations in order to cover large amounts of content
• Private communication of student ideas and conclusions to the teacher

More Emphasis On
• Activities that investigate and analyze science questions
• Investigations over extended periods of time
• Using evidence and strategies for developing or revising explanation
• Science as argument and explanation
• Groups of students often analyzing and synthesizing data after defending a conclusions
• Doing more investigations in order to develop understanding, ability, values of inquiry and knowledge of science content
• Applying the results of experiments to scientific arguments and explanations
• Public communication of student ideas and work to classmates

Clearly, establishing the vision of effective and meaningful science education and its implementation within teacher practice is complex and dynamic. As Yager (2000) states, “The precepts upon which current reform efforts are based reflect the dynamic and constructive nature of knowledge and are completely congruent with current research in cognitive science, which defines learning as an interactive process occurring within and influenced by the learner”. At Journeys School, we strive to achieve academic excellence and provide a meaningful education through participating in this challenge to realize a new vision of science education for the 21st century. From elementary exploration of regional geology to upper school investigations on urban songbird diversity, efforts to learn good science as communicated by the national science education standards can be witnessed at all grade levels. Miller and Voelker (1982, cited by Yager 2000) recognized the importance of these efforts. And although written twenty-five years ago, the challenge remains the same for us today:
If we want a science program that is truly responsive and responsible to the citizen in a scientifically and technologically oriented society, we must elevate current and future citizen concerns. We cannot assume that curricula which emphasize traditional cognitive knowledge and an understanding of the processes will lead to an understanding of the science-related issues confronting society. Neither can we assume that such traditional curricula will assist our student-citizens in applying their scientific knowledge and processes to these issues. Some sacred cows of the science curriculum must be eliminated. But the short-term trauma this sacrifice may elicit will be replaced by a long-term gain for all citizens.

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© 2005, Basecamp News, Journeys School of Teton Science Schools.