SOAR: STEM Grant

I am planning some grant proposals for SOAR, a comprehensive grant program for Winchester Academy, and am trying to devise ways to infuse our curriculum with more technology, engineering, and valid applications.  Moreover, these ideas should be part of a project and take place on campus to make the program relevant to the whole school.  I think we will start with the GLOBE Watershed Dyanmics project.  I took part  in the West Virginia Watershed Dynamics project a few years ago.  The program employs GIS, mapping tools, data collection with sensors, and several valid lessons and activities which are part of a comprehensive unit in Modukes.  Many of the technology tools are free and available online.  This week my Earh Science class will become acquainted with these tools, training modules, and learning activities before beginning the Watershed Dynamics project. Long experience indicates that it is best to introduce the tools to students before starting the program itself.

The Watershed Dynamics programs uses mapping tools; IHMC has free concept mapping tools, Cmaps.  A concept maps helps students understand the relationships among terms or ideas embedded in a lesson or unit.  I am a reluctant convert to concept maps; they are useful to students as an assessment tool to gauge their understanding of a given concept.

The next tool is National Geographic's Fieldscope, a GIS program.  The first step is to watch the tutorial introducing GIS program.  Once they are familiar with the idea of GIS and how Fieldscope works, the class can take time to learn about GLOBE's Training Modules, which dovetail with the Watershed Dynamics project.  On to Cacapon!

Cacapon Institute's e-school has extensive training on watersheds.  The kids will begin with the slideshows and games before scanning the site's resources, especially, the virtual streams.  The last resource to explore Explorer for ArcGIS, am online mapping tool similar to Fieldscope.