Geneva State Park

Day: Rainy. Me: Exhausted. Lesson: Absolutely perfect.

Teaching from the farthest west beach in Geneva State Park made the whole packing up fiasco (see: Breaking Camp) worth the extra energy. In just one class block, my life science students learned about aquatic ecosystems, classification (vertebrate specific), application of photosynthesis, chemosynthesis, bivalves, rock weathering, algae, field work safety, and which mammals can hold their breath underwater the longest (seals, so far). 

Help us identify this!

They laughed as Piper tried to eat the backbone I found and when my shoes got wet in a rogue wave. They were surprised about what can live in a freshwater system like Lake Erie and that you can use sticks as chopsticks to pick up things on the beach. They were even kind enough to take a screen break for five minutes so I could get our classroom (and Piper) back in the car when it started raining. They asked questions and we had real conversations about science. Whole, real conversations. It was incredible. This is how I always envisioned teaching.

One of my students, upon hearing about this adventure, said she was relieved because she really wanted to travel when she grew up and now she knows there are jobs that will let her travel and work at the same time. It also helped to have a co-teacher who stepped in to have the students write reflections on what we learned today. Since I still have to be able to grade them on something, and we cannot just have Socratic seminars all the time, maybe I'll have them keep a travel journal, too; a way to organize and connect the things we are learning with the various biomes I hope we'll visit.

If nothing else comes from these wayward science lessons, at least I'll have plenty of ideas for how to create geographically-authentic lessons. I'm off to learn more about the seals.

Keep coming back. :)