With microscopes, students see an opportunity

SOUNDER STAFF

November 13, 2008 at 9:34AM AKST

A group of seventh-grade Kotzebue Middle School students in teacher Steve Tyree’s class designed, developed, and demonstrated a science project to three different fifth-grade classes.

“The seventh-grade students have taken this project and run with it, on their own, discussing how they wanted to divide themselves into three groups, each one providing a different demonstration on how to use two different types of microscopes,” Tyree said. “They have even written up their own experience of the entire project.” 

Through the No Child Left Behind Act, schools are encouraging students to increase their reading and writing skills. This science project, done in conjunction with teachers, has allowed these students in both fifth and seventh grades to incorporate management, leadership, speaking, writing and organizational skills into one classroom project.

The seventh-grade students — Danielle Fields, Scarlett Beaver, MacKenzie Smith, Spencer Adams, Kendall Maslen, Paige McConnell, and Deirdre Creed — working with Tyree, provided demonstrations of the dissecting microscope (used to dissect large objects) and the compound microscope (used to magnify tiny objects).

Each of the fifth-grade classes, along with their teachers Kristi Adams, Faith Jurs, and Joan Reynolds, came into the science room and were able to see and participate in four different science project stations.

The stations were set up with baby beans — examining a developing bean; protozoa — single-celled animals that live in water; onion skin — observing the onion skin after placing two drops of iodine on it; and stomata — looking at cells on the backside of lettuce.

To complete the presentations, the seventh-grade students provided a lecture for the last two classes about the differences between plant and animal cells.

“During a time in education when we are expecting our children to improve their reading and writing skills, Steve Tyree and the other teachers at the Kotzebue schools are creating enriching learning environments,” said Neale Caffin, Northwest Arctic Borough School District public relations director.

“These students really stepped up to show their academic abilities and creativity through hands-on applications of academic excellence and we are proud to have them and their teachers as part of the Northwest Arctic Borough School District,” he said.  

Tyree has been voted Alaska’s Earth Science Teacher of the Year by the Alaska Geological Society in spring 2008. He was also the runner-up for the National Earth Science Teacher of the Year for 2008.

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