For Immediate Release
May 31, 2007
Contact:   Melanie McDonald, director of media relations, 574-284-4579

Elementary teachers learn cutting-edge science instruction techniques

NOTRE DAME, Ind.--More than 100 elementary school teachers and administrators from School City of Mishawaka will be at Saint Mary's College this summer learning--or enhancing their knowledge of--a cutting-edge science instruction technique called "guided inquiry." Led by Dr. Joseph Bellina, Jr., a Saint Mary's College physics professor, and Dr. H. Gordon Berry, a physics professor at the University of Notre Dame, this one-week workshop will immerse K-6 teachers in the strategies and practices of guided inquiry science instruction using the Full Option Science System (FOSS) developed at the Lawrence Hall of Science ( http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/foss/ ) The workshops will take place in the Science Building at Saint Mary's College.

"Science is a subject that can seem overwhelming as people envision difficult calculations and lots of memorization. However, the research results indicate that students learn science best by experimenting--testing their own observations and real-life experiences with hands-on activities--rather than memorizing formulas and facts," says Bellina. "The FOSS curriculum that School City of Mishawaka has chosen encourages students to explore and experience the world in a hands-on and minds-on way that is similar to how scientists themselves learn science.   As a result, the children in the Mishawaka Elementary Schools look forward to doing science and enjoy learning."

The first session, June 4-8, involves teachers sitting at tables with partners, conducting experiments and discussing their findings. In conversations, Bellina and Berry prompt participants to approach a problem from multiple angles so that they learn both from their successes and their failures. The second and third sessions, June 11-15 and June 18-22, go a step further. Teachers review with one another the work they've done with the FOSS system over the past year, and discuss and assess their work to improve student engagement next year.

These Teacher Science Institutes are funded as part of a $420,000 Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP) grant awarded to School City of Mishawaka by the Indiana Department of Education. The MSP program was designed to encourage colleges and universities, local school districts and individual schools to participate in professional development activities that increase the knowledge and improve the teaching techniques of math and science teachers. In Indiana, funds must be used to promote and enhance inquiry-based learning in science at the elementary level.

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