High School Science Lessons in Middle School
Seventh grade science teachers gained exciting, hands-on skills to teach the new South Carolina science standards at a recent professional learning session hosted by GCS. Two Wade Hampton High science teachers, Jamie Whitlock and Abby Cook, led the week-long session for 7th grade science teachers from across the District.
First-year teacher Lauren Holman, who will teach sixth and seventh grade science at Northwood Middle School, is excited about what she’s learning and how she can apply it in the classroom. “I am learning a lot from the other teachers here. It’s a very hands-on approach to teaching co-dominance and incomplete dominance in a way that forces students to work through the problem. It helps reinforce their learning and helps them think on a higher level.”
For those who are not science teachers, co-dominance and incomplete dominance refer to, for example, the blending of genes to produce different eye and hair colors or to explain how humans have four different blood types.
“The activities were selected to help students better understand abstract concepts, like using jelly beans and plastic cups to understand that balancing chemical equations requires having the same number of atoms going in that they have coming out,” said Abby.
“Jamie and Abby are two of the best science teachers in the district,” said Chris Burras, Science Academic Specialist. “They are extremely student-centered and live and breathe inquiry.”
