Welcome to another online addition of the Arizona Promising Practices forum. For those new to this service, each issue, which will now be sent to you on a regular basis, will focus on:

(1) Recommended National Educational Websites; and (2) One promising practice article in condensed form. We welcome your recommendations for improvement to this forum or suggestions on future topics (these will be wide ranging so if nothing in this update interests you, hold on for future editions!) The Arizona Promising Practices Forum and website, www.azpromisingpractices.com is a FREE resource of the Arizona Department of Education.

Mary Urich, ACPE Director murich@ade.az.gov 

In this issue we present to you a research based science initiative designed to engage children's interest in science and learning in general. Developed at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History, this hand’s on activity is designed to be utilized in all geographical areas and with any student population. Components may be used in whole or on a piece-by-piece basis.

National Website of Importance - For ideas on how to strengthen curriculum and learning in rural areas, check out the Rural School and Community Trust website. With ideas ranging from learning to recruitment to parental involvement, this one-stop resource provides an excellent focal point. http://www.ruraledu.org

Promising Practice Research and Teaching Tips

Schools/Students Served: Over 1,500 students per year in three elementary and nine middle schools in the western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania participate in the Roger Tory Peterson Institute's "Teaming with Nature" program (formerly known as The Selborne Project).

Background: The western New York/northwestern Pennsylvania region suffers from a declining population as its young people leave to seek education and job opportunities that do not exist within the region. These young people often do not return, since the benefits and resources of the region have never been explained or made a personal impact on their lives. In addition, teachers within this region are often poorly trained, if at all, to use the outdoors as an integrating context for learning.

Goals: There are four objectives of the Teaming With Nature program:

1) to create ecological awareness, understanding, and concern among students;

2) to help students develop a sense of respect for and responsibility toward the communities in which they are being reared;

3) to increase children's overall interest in learning; and

4) to energize teachers and facilitate creative ways to incorporate the study of natural science into the curriculum.

Through Teaming With Nature, the immediate environment surrounding the school becomes a laboratory for the study of natural and human systems and the way they interact. The school's physical, social, and natural settings are examined, and students produce maps, field guides to natural history, and research papers that describe their community from ecological and social perspectives. Students learn required concepts in science, mathematics, language arts, and social studies in the context of a variety of investigations within the square kilometer surrounding their school.

Accomplishments: Teachers develop their own system of hands-on, inquiry-driven learning in authentic nature-in-the-community settings through a slate of workshops that feature place-based activities and a summer institute that focuses on curriculum integration. Teaming With Nature program participants are walked through a step-by-step process of identifying components of their existing year-long curriculum that can be taught within the context of a thematic study using the one square kilometer surrounding the school. Participants find new ways to meet skill and content learning objectives through relevant and authentic place-based experiences at appropriate times throughout the school year.

Community members and parents are identified and recruited to share their knowledge about the local community and participate and lead project activities. Through their work in Teaming With Nature, students learn directly about the ecosystems and the diversity of life inhabiting "their" square kilometer, come to value their hometown, and learn to appreciate the cooperation and shared responsibility necessary to sustain it. Perhaps because the project is so much fun, or perhaps because it appears to be meaningful to them, students increase their interest in learning in general. Teachers find that the teamwork engendered by the project carries over to benefit the learning process all year long.