Teachers take teens to source
Learning here involves more
than textbooks

04/12 12:23 AM
By MARTA MURVOSH The Daily Herald

PAYSON - Branden Russell poked at a tan, smooth-skinned caterpillar with his finger.
The larva curled up in a circle.
"I like the fuzzy ones," said the 15-year-old Russell. "They curl up in a ball."
Russell is one of 20-odd Payson Junior High School students who are taking Science and Self-expression this year. They are outside most days walking, biking, observing nature and possibly poking at caterpillars.
"I've always felt science belonged outdoors," said Tom Willis, science teacher. "Science isn't in a book. The science I like to teach is outdoors."
Affectionately known as four-hour science, Willis' class isn't new to the junior high.
But for the last two years, students who take four-hour science are also taking their ninth-grade English from language arts teacher Lu Ann Staheli.
And their grades are up, Staheli said.
Both teachers were recognized statewide in March for their work.
Staheli received the Utah English and Language Arts Teacher of the Year from the Utah Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts.
Willis was named the Outstanding Science Teacher of the Year by the Brigham Young University chapter of Sigma Xi, a scientific research fraternity.
Before students were assigned to take the two classes together, the two teachers noticed they had many of the same students.
"We were keeping tabs and noticed those in both (classes) were excelling more," Staheli said.
Freshman Natalie Brown, 14, is one of those students who is taking both classes this year.
"My graders are better because I want to stay in the class," Brown said.
Students aren't picked for the class because they make the best marks, Brown explained, but they are expected to keep their grades up. The science class covers physical education and photography.
The two teachers combine assignments and overlap lessons.
When the students read a book in Staheli's class about a boy who finds the skull of a murdered American Indian boy. Willis will teach them about identifying animals based on their skulls, Staheli said.
Students learn more when they see connections between the two disciplines, Staheli said.
"By the time they are in high school, they are compartmentalized," Staheli said.
The two teachers meet after school or between classes in the hall to compare notes on the students.
While their teachers track them, students track birds, plants, other wildlife and they write about their discoveries.
Willis took the class hiking for more than an hour to tracking birds. While recording birds may have been the lesson's goal Monday, Willis found lessons everywhere.
Before the students left school property, Willis paused and stood above a lone weed sprouting in a crack in the asphalt. They had to identify it. By the year's end, they will have learned 50 plants.
In Staheli's class, students don't always sit still.
Students demonstrate stealing bases as part of analyzing the poem "The Base Stealer."
For Staheli, the ninth-graders have written historical fiction based on research done during a three-day trip to Yellowstone in January. Their work must be set in the 1800s and include what they have learned. For example, they could describe real plants that they learned about while in Wyoming.
Staheli and Willis share their knowledge, but they guide their students to learn independently.
Willis has an interesting method to do this.
As the year passes, he forgets things.
"The first term I know everything," Willis said. "The second term I know less, the third term even less. By the fourth term, I know nothing because they have to gain confidence."
By the fourth term, he won't answer students' questions. He sends them outdoors to observe and then to reference books to compare their observations with others. Then, Willis will confirm the student's theory and research.
"I want them to struggle," Willis said. "I want them to learn."
This approach seems to work for the 15-year-old Russell.
"We get to come out and do this," Russell said. "If you just get in a book, you aren't going to learn things."

Article Reprinted with permission: The original article titled "Teachers take teens to source, Learning here involves more than textbooks" written by Marta Murvosh was published in the Local & Regional Section of the The Daily Herald, (Provo, UT) April 12, 1999.

Teachers take teens to source Learning here involves more than textbooks

Teachers take teens to source
Learning here involves more
than textbooks