Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/the-nest-weighs-as-much-as-a-fridge!-supporting-pre-service-teachers-in-stem/5026578/
*Photos can be found in the pdf version of this article.
Preschool students in Susan’s classroom could not stop talking about bald eagles.
“Did you see the nest?”
“Look at my arms! They are like the eagle’s wings!”
The teacher had been showing eagle cam live streams as part of her efforts to build on the children’s prior interests in birds at the bird feeder. Capitalizing on their eagle excitement, Susan set up the live feed in the classroom on February 10, 2021. After a few minutes, to everyone’s surprise, they actually saw an eagle lay one of her eggs! This fueled the students’ curiosity even more, and kicked off a months-long, multidisciplinary study of eagles, birds, and nests. This is a particularly vibrant example of how our innovative and collaborative approach to early childhood and elementary pre-service teacher preparation, the Early Childhood–Elementary STEM Collaboration, succeeds in real-world application.
Improving Pre-service Teacher Preparation
Our Early Childhood–Elementary STEM Collaboration started in 2017, with the goal of improving the quality of pre-service teacher preparation in STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math—for preschool through fifth grade in our region of Appalachia (Robertson, Nivens, & Lange, 2020). Over the years, our approach has evolved and expanded. Our model includes the following ...