Toucan 3 – Daily Schedule July 8-14, 2001

Welcome to “Toucan 3,” the third in a series of workshops made possible by  an NSF-AIRE award to Hope College.  “AIRE” stands for “Award for the Integration of Research and Education.”  Hope College received one of only a few such awards because NSF believed we had been at the forefront of the exploration of the interface between research and teaching and showed promise for continuing this effort.

 

One way we have found that research and teaching are integrated is in the use of inquiry in our classes.  With regard to teaching and research, it is with inquiry that “the two can tango.”  Hence the name of our workshops.

 

 

Sunday, July 8

 Arrive, Check in

8:00 p.m.
Orientation and Opening exercise

Monday, July 9

8:30 – 9:15

Cycles, The Water Cycle, and Water Quality.  Everything Goes Somewhere.
Donald Cronkite

                        9:30 – 10:30

Teacher Sharing – Baugh, Heron, Lachvayder.  20 minutes each

10:30 – 12:00

Experimental Design Pool
Jewel Reuter

12:00 – 1:30

Lunch

1:30 – 2:30

The Macatawa Water Shed
Brian Bodenbender 

2:30 – 4:30

Inquiring of the Stream at DeGraaf Nature Center with varioius sensors
Nancy Hein

4:30 – 5:30

Now that We’ve Inquired, what is inquiry?
Cronkite and others 

Formation of Groups (five of three people each)

6:00 – 7:30

Dinner

7:30 - …..

Intro to the computer lab
Nancy and Jewel

 

Well, here we are ready to begin.  All of us have some kind of experience to bring to this workshop.  All of us hope to go home with more than we brought, to have a deeper idea of what inquiry is and to have created some lessons on water quality that will add to our classes back home.

We have four staff members in this workshop, and all of them will be at work today.  The Director, Donald Cronkite, will tell you his overall vision for this workshop within the context of  the idea of “biogeochemical cycles.”   What does THAT have to do with water quality?  You’ll see.  Nancy Hein, our inquiry/technology director will be very busy today.  She’ll be introducing you to some of the approaches you can take to the study of a stream, and she will be one of those introducing you to the computer lab in the evening.  Jewel Reuter, an inquiry and technology specialist will spend a lot of time at Upward Bound preparing students for our second week , but she will get you busy using  the “experimental design pool” she invented.

 

Brian Bodenbender, our scientist in residence will be telling us about the local watershed from  his point of view in Hope’s Department of Geology and environmental science.  Busy day for all.

 

Tuesday, July 10                               

 8:30—Noon

Lake Michigan at Saugatuck Dunes State Park

12:00 – 12:30

Brown Bag Lunch at the Park

1:00 – 4:00

Macatawa Watershed – Lake Mac from Window on the Water Front..  Inidcatoor Organisms.

If time, we’ll also visit one of Holland’s boxed in streams to learn how to tell sewage fungus.

4:00 – 5:00

Teacher Sharing – Saiti, Biels, Smith.  20 minutes each

5:00 – 6:00

Group Meetings.  Brainstorms about Water Quality.

6:00 – 7:30

Dinner

7:30 - --

Computer lab
Nancy and Jewel

We are trying to view a variety of different water resources.  Michigan is a good place to do that since we have shore line on 4 Great Lakes, hundreds of smaller lakes, some sizeable rivers like the Kalamazoo and the Grand, and countless small streams, puddles, marshes, and other watery attractions. 

We will go to the 8th largest lake in the world today – Lake Michigan. (Can you name the seven that are bigger?)*  We’ll also see one of the countless river mouths that joins a river to Lake Michigan.  This one, Lake Macatawa, (or just “Lake Mac”) is the destination of many streams, carrying run-off from farms, industrial discharge, the final products of sewage treatment, all along with the silt  from erosion and even some water.  “Window on the Waterfront” is a park in Holland  that gives us access to Lake Macatawa, a view of  De Zwaan, our windmill, and some good birding early in the morning.  (Anybody want to go before breakfast?)

As this day winds down, you should be giving more thought to what sort of inquiry projects you’re going to write up and perhaps try out over the next few (very few) days..

 

Wednesday, July 11

8:30  - 9:30

Levels of  Inquiry and A Natural Approach to Devising Inquiry
Donald

9:30 – 11:00

Group Meetings, Devising Inquiries

11:00 – 12:00

Teacher Sharing – Haren, Maczuzak, Boss

12:00 – 1:30

Lunch

Afternoon

TechnologyTraining

Inquiry Construction

Computer lab is available all afternoon and evening. 

6:00 – 7:30

Dinner 

           7:30 –

Computer Lab

 

 On these days, Nancy and Brian and Donald and Jewel when she’s not teaching will be available all day to give advice and teach you how to use the technology  devices.

Thursday, July 12

Group meetings, Devising Inquiries

Technology Training :  Nancy, Jewel, Donald and Brian are available to help.

11:00 – 12:00

Teacher Sharing – Lamers, Millikin, Brown

A draft of all things you have written for the workshop will be due on Thursday by dinner time (6:00).  Each one will be assigned to another group for editing and critique.  The editing must be finished by 8:30 a.m. on Friday to allow time for  changes to be made in response to the editing..

  Are there water quality inquiries that use the school water fountains?

How about those bottles of water everyone carries?

 

So here we are on Thursday.  Most everything will have to get done today because reports are tomorrow!

Once your group gets on to the approach, devising inquiry labs is really pretty easy.  Just ask the natural questions and  then think of ways of answering these questions.  The great charm of inquiry is that it starts with questions students want to know and helps them learn all the things they need to know anyway in order to answer their question.

 

Friday,  July 13

Group Meetings,

Final Reports of Inquiry Activities

(We will schedule this in the afternoon once we know when all the teams will be ready)

            11:00 – 12:00

Teacher Sharing – Politan, Koedyker, Passerini 

6:00 – 8:00 

Farewell Banquet

Entertainment  (?) 

 

 

Let me start today with the entertainment.  We need some entertainment for the banquet, and if we are going to have some, you are going to have to be it.  So step right up.  Who will provide us with music and song, interesting stories, trapeze acts, whatever lurks just beneath your surface waiting to reveal your talent to all?

 

Each team will take some time in our afternoon presentation to describe the lessons they’ve devised.  We all want to make use of all the lessons, so write them up in such a way that they will be useful to others.  We’ll put them on our web site, so you can illustrate them with digital photographs.  Hard copy is due by 6:00 Friday evening, at the latest.