April 15, 2014 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: |
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Endeavor Leadership spent a week working side-by-side with heads of schools, teachers, students, and parents, sharing engaging STEM resources and best practice...Paris in the springtime. The visit was a springboard for the launch of Endeavor's first European cohort of educators for Fall 2014.
Leading the STEM strand at ELSA, the English Language Schools Association, Glen Schuster and Karen Woodruff helped integrate STEM ideas and practices for educators across Europe, particularly France.
At the American School in Paris (ASP), Glen and Karen conducted STEM workshops for teachers and spent a day in 2nd and 5th grade classrooms. Fifth grade students explored how scientists use satellites to collect data on migratory patterns of sea turtles, a focus of the Signals of Spring-ACES program. Second grade classes performed hands-on activities demonstrating that air has mass, a lesson from the Project 3D-VIEW curriculum which is now available to all ASP teachers.
NASA Endeavor graduate and ASP teacher Fay Hutchinson, coordinated the first ever STEM Night for students and their families. In family teams, participants engaged NASA's Engineering Design Process to build towers, towers that stretched over 2.5 meters high, and built out of a large single sheet of paper! Families had a great time! Imagine, asking 60 families in Paris to build "towers".
At ELSA's annual conference, with the initial launch of the STEM education strand, Endeavor held four, integrated-STEM workshops, sharing philosophy, activities, content, and pedagogy for K-12 classrooms. Sessions introduced compelling data sets, including NASA mission data from Mars, and exciting ocean data for enhancing student interest in mathematics and science content. Participants utilized 3D visualizations to build an understanding of plate tectonics. A highlight of the conference was workshop participants engaging in NASA's Engineering Design Process, when many built satellites and "launched" them into orbit around the moon.
Classroom teachers and administrators gained insights for bringing STEM connections to their classrooms, reflected on what it takes to be successful and learned the importance of integration in the course planning process.
ELSA's 2015 conference will feature new Endeavor educators presenting STEM sessions. International Educators in the program will earn the 3-course Leadership Certificate in STEM education from Teacher's College, Columbia University, in the interim.
Many thanks to Fay Hutchinson and Mark Ulfers at the American School in Paris; Donna Philip, President of ELSA France; and the many dedicated teachers and administrators who attended the NASA Endeavor sessions.