STARKVILLE — These days, elementary school students are learning more about environmental science than going to the local dairy farm.
Through the Youth Environmental Science Learning Center at Henderson Ward Stewart School, fourth- and fifth-grade students have a weeklong block each school year to supplement what they get from their textbooks.
Students visit the Noxubee Wildlife Refuge, where they identify animal footprints and fossils, and Plymouth Bluff, where they participate in the science enrichment program offered by Mississippi University for Women.
In addition to field trips, students have guinea pigs, turtles and mice to study and microscopes to help identify smaller organisms. Students also dissect owl pellets to determine what the owl ate.
The learning center helps teachers because fourth- and fifth-grade students cover multiple topics each day, fourth-grade teacher Nancy Sistrunk said.
“In the classroom, our resources are sometimes limited,” she said. “And the time that we can put into developing quality, hands-on science lessons is somewhat limited. Through Project YES, (instructors) take all their knowledge and resources and bring our stuff to life.”
Project YES began in the fall as a partnership between the Mississippi State University Extension Service, MSU Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, and Starkville School District. Inspired by initial success of the Starkville Science Club, a 34-week after-school program, the school district wanted a broader program. The Project YES learning center was born.
The learning center is in a wing of what used to be Overstreet Elementary. The building hadn’t been used in two years until this school year. Funding is provided by the National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center at MSU.
The initiative is to allow students to create, develop and conduct scientific experiments and foster interest and excitement about science in students and teachers.
According to statistics provided by Mississippi State professor and learning center coordinator Jessica Tegt, elementary school students in Mississippi rank 49th in the nation in science scores.
Additionally, science scores in Starkville School District are below average, she said.
“Studies show that students starting in third and fourth grade, if they don’t show interest (in science) at that level, they’re probably not going to be interested in it at a higher level,” Tegt said, “or they’re not going to understand those basic concepts. Scores show that when they get those experiences, when their cognitive learning is developing and they’re becoming more abstract in their thinking, their interest is higher.”
She said the curriculum is benchmarked to core curriculum for the state, and to some degree, at the national level. Tegt and co-coordinator Leslie Burger conduct tests before and after students participate in the program to gauge their retention.
By the end of the year, Tegt and Burger will know how effective the program is.
“Though we haven’t analyzed data yet, the kids are really receptive to the program,” Tegt said. “We walk the halls of Ward Stewart, and we have celebrity status. They’re really enjoying it.
“For us, to see the kids have that light bulb moment with some of the topics we cover tells us they need these types of experiences in conjunction with their classroom. We’re hoping to bring the teachers down here a little bit more so we can link the formal and informal parts of it.”
Fourth-grader Brayleigh Riley said she and her classmates still talk about their week at the learning center, though more than two months have passed. Though they’ll get to return as fifth-graders, students miss the experience.
“We wanted to keep on going because it was really fun,” Riley said. “We wanted to do it every day. At the refuge, we got to see fossils, go on a scavenger hunt and we got to guess which footprints belonged to which animal. I got all of them right except for one.
“It’s better than reading from the book.”
The next step for the learning center is to generate more interest and funding from local industries. Tegt said they’ve demonstrated the program can be done on a small budget and she hopes local industries will recognize the investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics-based jobs.
Burger said she hopes to soon package the curriculum with what teachers use in the classroom and develop a model of teacher training to incorporate into more sessions at the learning center.
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