COMMUNITY PARTNERS SHARING RESOURCES TO ALLOW CHILDREN TO STUDY SHARED WATER RESOURCES

In an effort to effectively train pre-service elementary education majors at the university to teach science to children, the author engages his students in service-learning projects each semester where elementary children are taught science in an authentic context. In this case, a small group of three pre-service teachers choose to teach third and fourth grade children about water quality during our “science day” held at one of our county parks. The water examined was drawn on location from one of our state scenic rivers. Equipment used to examine the water included materials borrowed from a student’s former middle school teacher, a high school chemistry teacher, and our local city water treatment facility.

The elementary children participating in the science day were from either a public or private school in the area, and children in groups of 15-20 each visited three additional education work stations on other topics over the course of their visit. The children attended each station for a 25 minute lesson developed by the pre-service teachers using vetted resources. Thus pre-service teachers taught their lesson four times to four different groups of children that day. The resources used to develop the lessons came from the library, curriculum lab, and world-wide web. The pre-service teachers were provided with an in-service on how to examine teaching resources for accuracy, and engaged in 6 weeks of coursework discussing what science is and pedagogical strategies for how to teach science prior to teaching their lesson to the children. A mock peer-to-peer lesson presentation day also preceded the science day with children.

Often pre-service elementary education majors hold a preconception that students will have the most fun and therefore greatest learning experience if playing a game. This article describes the outcomes of the experience of these pre-service teachers and how the feedback from the children indicated they enjoyed using genuine lab equipment to test and record water quality parameters such as conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and visual clarity more than playing a game.