Science Teachers from the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools Visit the MBL
Three science teachers and a principal from the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools spent Friday, May 16 on the MBL campus, where they explored various ways in which their middle- and high-school students could engage with the MBL.
“We are meeting with MBL scientists and staff, and I am becoming incredibly jealous of the awesome things happening here! I’ve already had 1,000 ideas from these conversations,” said Daniel Calleri, a biology instructor in the Laboratory Schools’ high school.
The private Laboratory Schools include five schools, ranging from nursery to high school, located on the University of Chicago campus. Children of UChicago faculty and staff comprise about 60 percent of the schools’ 1,850 students, while the rest come from Illinois and beyond. Founded by education reformer and philosopher John Dewey in 1896, the Laboratory Schools’ mission values including “learning experientially, exhibiting kindness, and honoring diversity.”
“We have a learning by doing philosophy,” said Scott Fech, principal of the high school (known as University High School or U-High). “We look for ways to make a tangible connection between what the students learn in class, and what is happening out in the world,” added Michael Wong, a middle-school science teacher.
The teachers saw the marine organisms in the MBL’s Marine Resources Center and the frogs in its National Xenopus Resource, and met with MBL scientists working in a variety of fields, including cell, developmental, and regenerative biology, neuroscience, and environmental science.
“What is going on here? Everything! The sky is the limit,” said high-school science teacher Sharon Housinger.
Among other possible interactions, the group explored ways to engage the students in a research question during a visit to Woods Hole, which they could continue to pursue in Chicago. For example, Wong suggested, the students could set up two shoreline webcams, one on Lake Michigan and one on Cape Cod, and collect the data on the web to compare freshwater and ocean ecology. “This is the way education is going: We are interested in forming partnerships with other schools and institutes, and continuing to share on the web after the initial engagement,” Fech said.
“The MBL doesn’t yet have program for middle- and high-schoolers,” said MBL Associate Director of Education Joel Smith. “We see this opportunity with the Laboratory Schools as an excellent way to start, to begin building a flagship program that excites kids about science for the rest of their lives.”