Saugus Iron Works PBU

Fifth grade teacher, Janet McKeone and Teacher Learning Center Director, Robert Simpson were invited to present at the annual Massachusetts Enviromental Education Society (MEES) conference at the College of Holy Cross on Wednesday, March 7th. Connecting the Centuries with 21st Century Technology focused on three major goals: 1) Understand the need for 21st century curricula; 2) show how technology integration drives student achievement; 3) participate in SIW PBU mini-lessons. During the hands-on mini-lessons participants learned how to measure mineral hardness using Moh's scale, identified simple machines using the Edheads.org website simulation, and constructed a simple machine with K'nex (a toy that helps kids develop engineering skills). As a wrap-up activity we challenged participants to take a quiz based on items found on the state science MCAS exam. Fortunately, our adult learners were indeed as smart as a fifth grader.

Labels: conference, mineral test, SIW

Do you want to learn more about early industrialization in Colonial America? Would you like to earn 89 PDPs in History? Do you want to help shape the history section of the Saugus Iron Works PBU? If you answered yes to any of these questions read on... Malden Public Schools will enter its second year of the Teaching American History Grant project beginning in August 2007. The Voices Rising Project provides high quality professional development for grade 3, 5, and 9th grade teachers responsible for teaching American History. Major activities include attending a one week summer institute (August 20-24, 2007), eight historian seminars and a workshop series to develop a lesson based on primary source documents. The upcoming year is especially exciting for Malden since we will partner with the Saugus Iron Works National Historic site to uncover new resources to enhance the history section of the SIW Project-Based Unit (PBU). Please download and review the job posting [PDF] and a draft of the summer institute schedule [PDF]. Email Robert Simpson (rsimpson on malden.mec) for more information.

Please note applications will be accepted until positions are filled.

Labels: SIW, Teaching American History Grant, Voices Rising