A group of middle and high school educators from Vermont and Mississippi recently engaged in a unique professional learning program that promotes authentic place-based STEM education and research about critical zone science and the Lake Champlain Basin. The program is the outcome of new a collaboration between the federally funded GEAR-UP Champlain Research for Secondary Teachers (CREST) Program and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Critical Zone (CZ) Big Data Cluster Project at ̽̽.
Through their participation in ̽̽’s , teachers spent a week immersed in local investigations about the Lake Champlain watershed alongside faculty researchers, graduate students, and teacher educators. They also received guidance and support to integrate place-based teaching practices into a project to be implemented in their school classrooms during the upcoming academic year.
Among the 18 participants were 12 Vermont teachers from a variety of middle schools and high schools across the state, and 6 middle school teachers from Jackson, Mississippi who have been engaged in a year-long education and outreach program as part of the NSF Critical Zone Project. This is the first year that the two programs merged to bring teachers from Mississippi and Vermont together to learn about place-based education in the Champlain Basin.
Hands-on activities took place at several locations in Chittenden and Addison counties, including ̽̽’s Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory along the shores of Lake Champlain in downtown Burlington, Potash Brook watershed in South Burlington, and an excursion in long boats that launched from the in Vergennes to explore various research sites along the New York and Vermont shores of Lake Champlain.
“The connection with local experts in both content and education is the most impactful aspect of the program,” said Brian Varga, a ̽̽ Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) graduate who teaches an integrated science class and AP Biology at Missisquoi Valley Union Middle and High School. “They showed us specific ways we could engage students in authentic science. I could easily see students at my school sampling soil for lead or monitoring stream quality in the places they live just like we did during CREST. I really enjoyed the fish dissection and learning about current research with lake trout. And I can envision organizing a field trip for students to take a trip out on the research vessel.”
Varga plans to implement a project with his students tied to ecology and causal relationships. While he still needs to work out some of the finer details, the project would involve students carrying out an investigation to determine whether two parts of any local ecosystem have a causal relationship, whether they are simply correlated, or neither.
“Doing water quality testing in Potash Brook helped me unlock an idea of how to do stations with my students to learn about testing different aspects of stream quality,” said Linnea Manley, who is in her sixth year as a science teacher at Middlebury Union High School. “Through CREST, I redesigned the water unit for my Environmental Systems and Societies class."
Manley plans to connect with the Watershed Alliance to help her teach students about testing dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, stream flow rate, and collecting macroinvertebrates. "The unit will culminate with students completing a lab experiment that they design, carry out, and analyze by themselves," she explained. "Each student will focus on a different stream or river within our Otter Creek Watershed. Water is such an essential part of how we live in Vermont. Having students study the health of our streams will allow them to have a better sense of place.”
Co-instructors for this year’s academy included ̽̽ faculty members Regina Toolin, Leon Walls, Julia Perdrial, Nico Perdrial, and Michael Blouin, along with researcher Dustin Kincaid, graduate student Matthew Futia, and Ashley Eaton from the Lake Champlain Sea Grant Program. The team of instructors also included three faculty (Deidre Wheaton, Chandar Lewis and Jacqueline Jackson) from Jackson State University in Mississippi, and teachers Gabe Grant and Jensen Welch from Bellows Free Academy (BFA) in Fairfax. Visit the to learn more about each instructor's research and teaching.
Serving as director of the CREST program since 2013, Dr. Toolin is a former middle and high school science teacher who devotes her time to pre-service and in-service STEM teacher education and equity and diversity issues in STEM education. Her research expertise focuses on principles and practices of inquiry-based, project-based, and place-based teaching and learning. Toolin also serves as a Co-Principal Investigator of ̽̽'s along with a team of researchers led by Principal Investigator Julia Perdrial, Ph.D. The project utilizes big data, earth science and complex systems tools to explore how short- and long-term disruptions to the Critical Zone affect its ability to provide life-sustaining resources.
"I love that CREST has so many hands-on activities for teachers," Manley says. "In fact, I love it so much that this year was my third time taking part in CREST. The team changes up experiences often enough that taking it more than once is still very worthwhile. Plus, I get to connect with different teachers in the area each time I take the class."
