Yuma Earth Science Classes Get New Spin

By Tammy Krikorian, The Sun, Yuma, Ariz.

Jan. 30–The tables were turned on earth science teachers throughout Yuma County this week as they participated in professional development, learning new information and new activities to present to their students. More than 30 middle and high school teachers from the Yuma Union High School District, Yuma Elementary School District 1, Crane School District, Antelope Union High School District, Gadsden School District and Somerton School District, plus one from Arizona Western College, gathered for three days of training at Cibola High School. The program is in its second of three years of training, brought to Yuma by Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) through a grant from the National Science Foundation. Presenters included educators from IRIS, Purdue University, Boston College, the Southern California Earthquake Center and the University NAVSTAR Consortium (UNAVCO).

Michael Hubenthal, an education specialist with IRIS, a university research consortium dedicated to exploring the Earth’s interior through collecting data, said the idea is to provide teachers with a better understanding of the content so they can present more innovative activities in the classroom. Teachers were shown demonstrations and also participated in hands-on activities such as creating topographic models of volcanic landforms using blue foam or injecting “magma” into gelatin volcanoes to see how magma travels to surface. “It’s fantastic,” said David Taylor, a teacher at Centennial Middle School. “A lot of good, relevant information that will help our students (and) help us explain recent discoveries.” Taylor said creating three-dimensional maps give students a better understanding of how things work than looking at a two-dimensional picture in a textbook. “We’re getting a lot of good, technological resources we can use,” Taylor said, referencing Web sites that provides content on earthquakes and plate tectonics. After Thursday’s session, Taylor said he went back to school to download some of the programs so he can use them in his classroom. “This will fit right in with what we’re talking about — it’s perfect,” he said. On Friday, Hubenthal demonstrated an activity about magma traveling through volcanoes using a gelatin volcano, water colored with red food coloring, two blocks of wood, a peg board, a Styrofoam tray and an oral syringe. Propping the peg board up on the blocks, the volcano was placed on top and the Styrofoam tray on the bottom. With a syringe, the red water, representing magma, was injected into the volcano. Throughout the activity, Hubenthal gave the teachers hints such as where to get supplies, how much they would cost and reminded them to provide both latex and vinyl gloves in case any students have latex allergies. The teachers cut apart the volcanoes to see how the magma traveled. They determined it didn’t move through a pre-existing space, but rather started at a point of weakness and began to move, traveling up instead of out, “looking for the shortest distance, the path of least resistance to freedom.” In another activity, Larry Braile, a professor at Purdue University, used Slinkies to demonstrate different kinds of seismic waves. Richard McClure, the science department chair at Cibola, said the professional development was a “wonderful experience.”"The activities presented are extremely engaging and can be presented to students tomorrow,” McClure said. “It gives teachers the latest information (and) provides very hands-on activity labs for the students to grasp those concepts.” McClure credited Cibola High School science teacher Gracie Rendon-Coke for bringing the program to Yuma. Rendon-Coke has been involved with IRIS for a number of years, she said, and through her involvement was able to bring seismometers to Cibola so students could see the activity on the nearby San Andreas Fault. Rendon-Coke said working with other school districts means that teachers aren’t overlapping in instruction. “When they get to high school we review, but it gives us time to expand into other areas,” she said. Toni Badone, assistant superintendent of curriculum at YUHSD, said the activities are based on state curriculum standards and the teachers will “walk away with excellent, doable, high-quality, real-life activities in earth science.”"Our students are engaged in activities that are rigorous, that are relevant to current events, science as it happens around the world, and the students and the teachers are establishing a network of relationships with universities,” Badone said. “It’s only going to help everybody.” Tammy Krikorian can be reached at tkrikorian@yumasun.com or 539-6847.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Sun, Yuma, Ariz.

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