View Five Teaching Strategies Slide Show
At a five-day summer retreat in 2006, Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School (King)
sixth-grade teachers met to integrate more closely the core curriculum, The Edible
Schoolyard Program, and the school lunch program. Looking for natural fits between
history, science, literature, and writing, they developed and refined a common sixth
grade experience that would focus on food and agriculture and promote an active lifestyle.
What follows are five tested strategies they used to tap into student creativity,
encourage youth to think critically, promote writing across subject areas, and provide
ongoing assessment of student understanding.
1. Choose a big idea in science to focus your curriculum.
How does energy move through an ecosystem — who eats whom, what, and why?
For the 2006/07 school year, the King science and math core teachers chose Food Webs as a focus for their ecology curriculum.
Teachers introduced students to the big idea by reading Dr. Art's Guide to Planet Earth by Art Sussman. After an introduction to the concept that everything on Earth is interconnected, students developed a big ideas brochure, modeled after the framework of Sussman's book. The "note-taking" brochure activity is an effective strategy for introducing and reinforcing academic vocabulary as well as outlining the big ideas that students will return to throughout the year.
2. Use a focus question to activate students' prior knowledge.
Revisit the question throughout the year for ongoing assessment of student understanding.
King teachers used the focus question "What is food?" as a writing prompt to tap into students' prior knowledge about food, food webs, and energy flows.
Students were asked to respond to the prompt three times during the year: at the beginning of the year; after they had completed an ecology unit and had worked in the school garden once a week for ten weeks; and after they had worked in the kitchen classroom once a week for eight weeks and had taken field trips to a community garden and a farm. At first, their understanding of food was a human-centered view of something on a plate to eat. By the end of the year, students' views on food had broadened to encompass an understanding of the flow of matter and energy through an ecosystem.
3. Provide students with a purpose for writing.
Use authentic garden experiences to develop writing skills and build vocabulary.
With a goal of increasing writing across the curriculum, King sixth-grade teachers used language arts to bridge students' experiential learning in the school garden and in the kitchen classroom with the formal curriculum.
The garden habitat served as a source of inspiration to budding writers. Activities such as recording garden snapshots helped students hone their observation skills and added the names of garden tools and plants to their active vocabulary. Cinquain poems were made richer by students' interactions with members of the school garden ecosystem and food web (like the chickens).
4. Use writing activities to introduce new concepts.
Students develop a deeper understanding of food chains by writing and illustrating
their own mini-books.
King teachers creatively incorporated the book Pass the Energy, Please by Barbara Shaw McKinney into their ecology studies as a warm-up or sponge activity over a period of several days.
On Day One, students constructed an 8-page mini-book and designed a cover that included a drawing of the sun and their book's title. Each day for the rest of the week, students were introduced to more and more complex food chains through McKinney's book, from "Link Number One — Born in the Sun" to "Decomposers on the Ground — Nutrients Go Round and Round." They then wrote about what they learned in their mini-books, drawing pictures of the producers and consumers in lengthening food chains.
5. Use real world experiences to explore and synthesize science concepts.
Field trips in the local community enhance student appreciation for the natural world
and help them synthesize and apply classroom learning.
As part of the common sixth-grade experience, students went canoeing in Arrowhead Marsh; visited a local community garden, farm, or dairy; bicycled to the Berkeley Marina; and hiked in Tilden Park.
Back in the classroom, students synthesized what they had learned about local wetlands and food webs by creating colorful brochures that demonstrated their knowledge of the energy flow through an ecosystem. Authentic discovery in informal learning environments not only helped students synthesize their classroom learning and apply it to the real world, but also helped form a foundation for responsible environmental behavior.
Sixth grade teachers at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California, share these strategies that they used with their students during the 2006/07 School Lunch Initiative (SLI) pilot. SLI is a public/private partnership of the Berkeley Unified School District, the Center for Ecoliteracy, and the Chez Panisse Foundation.