RED BANK — A grant would bring ongoing environmental research into the classroom through collaboration between the Red Bank School District and several local institutions.
Superintendent Laura Morana announced the GeoEducation program at meeting with the press on Dec. 9.
“It’s an enhancement of curriculum, not necessarily through the use of a textbook, but actually utilizing community resources as well as the natural, authentic environment for the kids to be able to further their skills and application knowledge,” Morana said. TheGeoEducation program, in its planning stages, involves a partnership between the N.J. Sea Grant Consortium (NJSGC), Rutgers University, Brookdale Community College, the National Park Service and the Sandy Hook Foundation.
The partnership received the grant from the National Science Foundation.
“The grant that we wrote proposed that we take the ongoing research that is going on at Sandy Hook, whether it’s geomorphology research or biological research, and find ways to introduce that research into the middle school curriculum,” said Claire Antonucci, executive director and director of education for Sea Grant Consortium.
“In other words, we’re going to get scientists working together with students and teachers, and they’re all going to learn from one another,” she said.
Antonucci described geomorphology as a fancy way of saying that sand moves around. Scientists track and measure these changes.
“Summer flounder have been tagged with acoustic tags to track them as they come up the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers,” Antonucci said of the ongoing biological research.
“We’ve been working very closely with the Red Bank School District so that we develop educational products that fit their school curriculum and help them meet the standards through very exciting locally based examples,” she said.
Antonucci said that she likes when students can meet scientists and see that they are just regular people.
“Hopefully at the end of it, the students realize that they, too, can become scientists,” she said.
Morana said that often the scientists are as interested in learning as the students.
“For the scientists, what I have seen, is that they want to learn from the teachers as well, [about] how to take research and bring it into the classroom in a meaningful way,” she said.
Antonucci said that Red Bank would be testing the pilot GeoEducation program, with the intent of replicating it for other districts.
Brookdale would be creating a professional development series to distribute as well, Antonucci said.
John Bombadier, supervisor of curriculum and instruction for the Red Bank School District, said that the program was another way to integrate the core courses throughout the curriculum in a hands-on way that fosters collaboration.
Bombadier described a recent situation where an engineer visited the district, something that the GeoEducation program would foster.
The engineer gave a design class hints on aerodynamics as they designed and tested airplanes.
“This is a wonderful way to bring resources into the school system, especially in these difficult economic times,” Morana said.