Biosite is a project intended to educate Booksin 4th graders on the systems in a garden, while learning about it and the process of teaching. I attended Booksin Elementary School and my sister still does, so I am very fond of the school and the children there. I also have always been attracted to the idea of teaching and working with younger children. Because of these reasons, I decided to join the Biosite project.
Before the biosite team were any where near children, we had to learn about the garden ourselves. The head of this project, a woman from the Children’s Discovery Museum, came over to WGHS almost every Tuesday for about a month. In these five half-hour periods, she taught us lessons almost if we were the 4th graders attending Biosite. We participated in labs and lessons ranging in topic from chickens, to compost, to parts of the plant. These are the three categories and stations the children will be taught at.
Once we possessed all the knowledge and content needed to teach the 4th graders, we split up into three groups, one for each categories. Within these groups we split up into groups of two or three so that our students would receive a more personal and hands-on experience. I decided I wanted to teach about compost and joined a team of three. Next, each team had to plan out their lesson plan. We were given suggested activities, including the ones we participated in during training, and a baseline for what our students were supposed to learn from our lesson.
The two other people in my group and I decided to first start off our lesson with a short yet fun icebreaker activity. After this, we planned to have the kids scavenge through trays of compost and make note of interesting things they find, while we educate them on various facts about compost. Next we planned Compost or Not? an interactive presentation using picture cards each labeled with a different type of waste. In this, students sort out what they think is compostable and what isn’t. We would then correct their answers and move onto a more in-depth activity entitled Trash Timeline. Here, we would use the same cards as in Compost or Not? but this time have the children sort the waste products into an order showing how long things take to decompose. We then will share the correct answers and explain why things are where they are on the timeline. After all of this hard work and preparation, all that was left was to wait until the day comes that we teach the Booksin students.
Before the biosite team were any where near children, we had to learn about the garden ourselves. The head of this project, a woman from the Children’s Discovery Museum, came over to WGHS almost every Tuesday for about a month. In these five half-hour periods, she taught us lessons almost if we were the 4th graders attending Biosite. We participated in labs and lessons ranging in topic from chickens, to compost, to parts of the plant. These are the three categories and stations the children will be taught at.
Once we possessed all the knowledge and content needed to teach the 4th graders, we split up into three groups, one for each categories. Within these groups we split up into groups of two or three so that our students would receive a more personal and hands-on experience. I decided I wanted to teach about compost and joined a team of three. Next, each team had to plan out their lesson plan. We were given suggested activities, including the ones we participated in during training, and a baseline for what our students were supposed to learn from our lesson.
The two other people in my group and I decided to first start off our lesson with a short yet fun icebreaker activity. After this, we planned to have the kids scavenge through trays of compost and make note of interesting things they find, while we educate them on various facts about compost. Next we planned Compost or Not? an interactive presentation using picture cards each labeled with a different type of waste. In this, students sort out what they think is compostable and what isn’t. We would then correct their answers and move onto a more in-depth activity entitled Trash Timeline. Here, we would use the same cards as in Compost or Not? but this time have the children sort the waste products into an order showing how long things take to decompose. We then will share the correct answers and explain why things are where they are on the timeline. After all of this hard work and preparation, all that was left was to wait until the day comes that we teach the Booksin students.
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