USING JOURNALING TO FACILITATE GEOSCIENCE INQUIRY IN AN INFORMAL SUMMER SCIENCE CAMP

The Noyce Scholarship is given to STEM majors who are planning to teach in high needs schools. As a Noyce scholar I have taken full advantage of this opportunity to employ my strengths in science within the Buffalo Public School District (BPS) at two different schools this past year. Within the BPS District, there are schools that are benefitted by the ISEP (Interdisciplinary Science Engineering Partnership) grant, which aims to change the way science is taught within the schools. This, in turn, is carried through into the Cradle Beach Summer Residential Camp, where Buffalo State and ISEP provide BPS ISEP students scholarships to attend a ten-day camp session and participate in a “camp within a camp” science workshop. Cradle Beach residential camp is a unique camp experience as is combines urban children that are economically disadvantaged and also, that range in needs; many have emotional, intellectual or physical disabilities. This atmosphere requires a high counselor to camper ratio and the camp is fully accessible both inside the cabins and outside on the trails.

Students attending Cradle Beach on ISEP’s full scholarship attend a four session “camp within a camp” science workshop. This workshop is an informal science learning experience for the campers with an emphasis on inquiry and reflection. This summer the campers have been provided with a journal where they will reflect on their experiences in the science workshop. By giving the campers journals, we are seeing a vested interest in the ownership of their learning. The metacognition of the activities is heightened when the campers are given time to reflect in their own space on what they have worked on during the lesson. This idea is from an ISEP course taken by the instructor of the “camp within a camp” prior to the start of Cradle Beach camp that predicated on best practices through journaling and reflection. By collecting data through content contextual analysis from the campers musings, we are able to see the benefit of using a journal to facilitate inquiry in an informal summer science camp.

Session No. 68--Booth# 186

T77. Disseminating Best Practices and Resources Developed in Education Projects Funded by the National Science Foundation or by Other Federal/State Agencies (Posters)

Sunday, 25 September 2016: 9:00 AM-5:30 PM

Exhibit Hall E/F (Colorado Convention Center)

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 48, No. 7
doi: 10.1130/abs/2016AM-287716

© Copyright 2016 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.

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