nieworld.com

Teachers

Students

Families

Projects

Email NIE

This year I worked very hard to get parents more involved in my classroom. With the help of The News-Journal I was very successful. In November I held my first Family Science Workshop. During that special evening I prepared a contest between parents and students to cut out as many articles, advertisements, and or pictures related to Biology in a five-minute time period. After the time period was up each group glued down their articles to a big piece of butcher paper, which I hung on the wall. After the posters were assembled we discussed each article and how it related to Biology. To the surprise of many students and parents, they discovered that almost the entire paper directly or indirectly related to Biology. Thus, I was able to answer the age-old question. "When am I ever going to use this in the real world?"

From that point on parents and students would send me in articles related to the topics we were covering. In addition, I assigned a 3R assignment where students and parents would have to find an article and write a Review, Reaction, and how it related to their "Real World." This was a fantastic assignment that students could do with their parents to open up a discussion around the dinner table about what they were learning in class and how it related to their family. It is amazing after that workshop how the parent support and student motivation for Biology increased.

Jennifer Taylor
9-12th Grade
Atlantic High

Copyright © 2009 NIE WORLD (www.nieworld.com). All content copyrighted and may not be republished without permission. The News-Journal has no control over and is not responsible for content on other Web sites. Privacy Policy.