Updates on Partnerships/Collaborations

In this section:

Gardening their Way through Math and Science

MPO Calendar Project: What Does the Future of Transportation Hold For Us?

Gardening their Way through Math and Science

Introduction
Each morning the fifth grade students from Avon, Ohio enter the distance learning room to turn on plant lights, measure bean and lettuce sprouts and water their boxes. What makes this unique is that, hundreds of miles away in sunny Florida, third graders in Miami complete a similar ritual out in their green house using natural light. Although the students from both school districts are miles apart, they videoconference to share their progress, compare graphs, and discuss the weather and their schools.

The Beginning
In October 2005, two IVC coordinators met at the Keystone Conference in Indianapolis and discussed project ideas. After a couple of informal discussions and a few videoconferences, they helped two schools plan a gardening project designed to help students meet science standards focusing on the scientific process, measurement and graphing.

The Middle
After Christmas break, to keep the variables of dirt and seeds the same, each school ordered earth box kits from earthbox.com. The Miami students kept their boxes in their school’s greenhouse or placed them outside. The Avon students kept their earth boxes in the distance learning room and used grow lamps for sunlight. The classes made predictions and shared their rationale relating to how their plants would grow.

Since planting in January, students from the two schools have been sharing their results, gardening advice, and improving public speaking using common class time via videoconferencing. Although some of the connections have been shorter than others, the students still found the sessions rewarding and looked forward to their next connection.

Disaster?
When a malfunction in the heating system in Avon wiped out most of their beans and all of their lettuce, the students turned the project into a rescue mission for the remaining plants!

Results
Even with the heating tragedy, the teachers from both classes have been very pleased with their students’ efforts. They look forward to partnering again and having even better results next school year.

Submitted by Paul Hieronymus, Distance Learning Education Consultant, The Lorain County Distance Learning Consortium in Avon, Ohio.

MPO Calendar Project:
What Does the Future of Transportation Hold For Us?

Fifth Graders Explore Transportation in Support of their Curriculum

MPO Transportation Planner, Heather Stouder, connected, via videoconference, with over 150 students on Thursday morning, January 19, 2006 to explore EXACTLY what the future of transportation holds for inquisitive fifth graders from three states. Students from Sylvester Elementary School in Southern Georgia, St. John’s Episcopal School in Dallas, Texas, and Ferdinand Elementary School in Ferdinand, Indiana, came together to learn from Heather and each other. This was the first step in the MPO Calendar Project.

During the sixty-minute session, students explored the feasibility of walkable communities, multi-modal transportation systems, and fossil fuel conservation. Heather grouped students for brainstorming activities around issues such as environmental and personal costs and benefits associated with traditional automobile transportation, regional-specific multi-modal transportation, and multi-modal transportation for individuals with specific needs. In addition, students from each state compared their own local community transportation experiences. For example, St. John’s students shared details of their walkable community model built around one of the new D.A.R.T. (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) hubs, Dallas’s new light rail system. Heather then explored, from an economic aspect, the relationship and interdependence between commerce and transportation and the impact of transportation systems on air quality.

Another aspect of the MPO Calendar Project included students submitting artistic renditions of their perception of the future of transportation. From these submissions, student art was selected for publication in an upcoming MPO Calendar.

The Calendar Project, including this videoconference, was made possible by the support of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization in partnership with the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC). If you would like to get your students involved in a community program like this, please contact Monica Cougan, 317-231-6526.