Twenty-four mid-state teachers boost science skills at Teaching Nature on a Budget

Janel Shoun | 07/20/2007

If you want to teach children the process of manufacturing paper, the importance of recycling and the many way trees are used in our society, all it takes is a flamingo-shaped cookie cutter and a few ounces of pink sludge.

Boiled down, that’s the core idea behind “Teaching Nature on a Budget,” a week-long workshop for Tennessee’s elementary school teachers held this past week at Lipscomb University. The workshop is designed to show teachers how they can boost science content in all subject areas using some creative ideas and a few inexpensive items like sandwich bags, plastic cups, socks or yarn.

The pink sludge is actually a combination of pink construction paper and water that David Lipscomb Elementary School teacher Jamie Potts blended together and is now pouring into the cookie cutter over a sieve. The water drains out, leaving the mushed paper and after a few minutes of pressing and drying, Potts has a nice collection of pink, flamingo-shaped sheets of hand-made paper, a product sure to please her first-graders in the coming fall.

During the past week, the twenty-four teachers from Davidson, Lewis, Rutherford, Dickson and Coffee counties have learned about paper-making as well as how to conduct a “sock walk” to collect natural debris on the ground, how to coordinate an observation nature walk to search for “traces of life” and how to use small, kid-sized microscopes.

“This workshop is designed to allow them to see that with just a few things you can teach nature to kids relatively simply,” said Tamara Klingbyll, Lipscomb instructor in biology and developer of the program. This past spring, Lipscomb received a $56,800 Improving Teacher Quality Grant from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to develop the program for teachers in high-need school districts.

Ellinois Burton, a kindergarten teacher from Smyrna Elementary in Rutherford County, said simple ways to teach more science is definitely needed in early childhood education, where reading is often the primary focus, to the detriment of science education. She said the paper-making project is a fun activity she could do even with pre-schoolers over the course of a few days.

“I’ve never attended a workshop with so many activities and hands-on projects that I can take back to my pre-schoolers,” Burton said.

“I never feel like I have done enough. I’m always wanting to do more,” said Diane Chappell, a third-grade teacher from Dickson County. “So it’s always exciting to get new ideas from the other teachers. That’s what I really like.”

Candace McQueen, chair of the Lipscomb Department of Education, was also involved in developing the program and provided the participants with many great ideas, based on the latest educational research, of ways to incorporate science into other subjects such as reading or history. Nature-themed books can be used to boost science vocabulary and studying tree rings can lead into a history lesson.

“The whole idea is to allow teachers to have great ideas pre-prepared, to cut down on their prep time, which is a major benefit to teachers,” Klingbyll noted.

The paper-making was certainly a hit and the teachers were thrilled to take home the equipment needed for their own classrooms. The teachers could be seen happily blending bits of leaves and plants they had collected outside or scenting the paper with cinnamon or baby powder.

Shawndra Armstrong, a fourth-grade teacher from Metro Davidson County, said the paper-making and leaf-pressing was definitely her favorite activity so far.

“It’s been so informative. I’ve been learning a lot about things I thought I already knew about,” she chuckles. “It’s been the experience of a lifetime. I’m glad I was chosen.”

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