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Beaver science students connect with educators

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer

Beaver Area School District sixth-grader Ryan Tatko will watch just about anything on TV, but he doesn't usually talk to the television. Nor does it usually talk back.

But those rules were thrown out the window at College Square Elementary School in Beaver. Sixth-graders have been talking to a 19-inch TV, through which they can see and hear educators from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, stationed in Oakland, talk back.

"Talking to the TV helps you to pay attention to what's going on," said Ryan.

The Beaver Area students -- along with seventh-graders in Fox Chapel Area -- are piloting the museum's distance learning program on biodiversity, including one teleconference per class. The Beaver Area students finished their teleconferences yesterday; teleconferences start in Fox Chapel Area on Thursday.

Across the country, some other natural history museums offer distance learning programs over the Internet. With $150,000 in seed money from the Grable Foundation, the Carnegie is now entering the field with its own twist on the idea: It includes a live teleconference.

Diane Grzybek, chair of the education division at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, said what makes the Carnegie's approach different is that it will make the Carnegie's researchers available for live discussions with students through videoconferencing.

The program is starting out in the region, but Grzybek hopes it will become a national program.

The Carnegie's approach doesn't rely only on technology. The regional program includes loans of boxes of material -- such as field guides, a case of taxidermy mounts of sparrows, replicas of mammal scat, a local insect collection, track replicas and the materials needed to mark off an outdoor study area. It also includes an in-person visit by a Carnegie representative both before and after the videoconference.

The lessons are built around an outside survey of plant and animal life and the environment in the school community.

Students learn vocabulary and concepts related to biodiversity. In small groups outside, they mark off circles and record all of the life they find in there.

Science teacher Sue Kaufman said some of the topics are regularly covered in science class, but the materials make it possible to go more in-depth. Science teacher Mary Smith said the students were excited about the technology. "You can hear them in the hallways," she said.

The students' findings are discussed in the videoconference. The students can see the Carnegie staff, as well as closeups of the objects they show, on the TV. The also see a smaller picture of themselves in the corner of the screen. In Oakland, the Carnegie staff uses two monitors, one for themselves and one to see the students.

Exactly what is discussed depends on what the students find. Carnegie education assistant Karen Tingley and Carnegie program specialist Pat McShea are equipped with information and samples ranging from grass collected in 1902 to a taxidermy mount of a woodpecker.

The conference typically ends with a question: Do the students view the world differently?

"Now you know there are all different kinds of things out there, not just the things you can see," Mallory Hiltz, a College Square sixth-grader, answered.

Every class gave an answer along those lines.

"That's one of the real big ideas we hope they come away with, said McShea.