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SIERRA VISTA — As five teachers went step-by-step through an experiment they could do with their students at Coronado National Memorial, brainstorming was rampant.
“If I was doing this with little kids, I would not have this many samples,” said second grade teacher Georgia Bernheim of Colonel Johnston Elementary School.
From there, the teachers compared ways to have their students plot the information, from bar graphs to pie charts, as well as other activities they could get involved with at the park.
The trip to the memorial was one of two field trips 50 teachers were taken on earlier this week as part of SPLASH — San Pedro Learning and Science Happening — a two-day workshop aimed at showing teachers how they could take science out of the classroom.
  
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But it wasn’t just the teachers who were benefiting. Coronado National Memorial took it as an opportunity to get input on how they could best cater their programs to kids.
“One of the things we’re finding is kids are getting disconnected from nature,” said Denise Shutlz, chief of interpretation at the park. “We want to be able to connect these kids with these resources.”
The teachers were broken into two groups during the workshop to lessen the number of people who went on each field trip, both groups getting to go to each location over the two days.
In addition to the memorial, the teachers went to Gray Hawk Nature Center, where they learned about local ecology.
Center Director Sandy Anderson connected with many of the teachers as she explained the way she handles field trips to her facility.
“Our field trips here, no matter what the age, are always interactive,” she said, as she took them on a hike down to some beaver dams.
When the group arrived at the water, many of the teachers suddenly appeared like students themselves as they stepped into the water and took a closer look at the dams, trying to figure out the answers to questions that Anderson asked them, just as she would have done with their students.
Deni Austin, a kindergarten teacher at Palominas Elementary School, said the trip showed her how she could still stick to state standards, but get kids out of the classroom.
“I’ve gotten a lot of ideas of how I can incorporate this,” she said.
“It’s not just science, it’s something I can incorporate across the whole spectrum.”
Another benefit to the workshop, said Bernheim, was the networking and new ideas the teachers got from being around each other.
“Teachers are great resources,” she said.
“If there were 50 people there, there were 50 different ideas.”
“I like getting out and being with all the different teachers in the county,” Bernheim added, who’s been teaching for 35 years. “We still have more to learn.”
Susan Arndt, project coordinator for the Cochise County Superintendent’s Office, said she was happy with how well-received the workshop was.
“Probably the biggest reward of all of this is seeing their faces and hearing them say "I can’t wait to show my kids,’ ” she said.
“That’s the reward, that’s when we know we hit the nail on the head.”
Herald/Review reporter Katie Evans can be reached at 515-4611 or by e-mail at katie.evans @svherald.com
Curious wrote on Jun 26, 2008 2:00 PM: