9355668 Brittain This is a three-year project to work comprehensively with 72 elementary schools over the next three years -- providing each with one year of intensive site-based training focused on Using the Outdoors to Teach Experiential Science (UTOTES). Over the three rears, approximately 1000 teachers will have been reached. Each school will select 16-24 teachers to participate in six site-based training sessions -- with the principal and one or more community resource persons also participating. During these sessions, the following will be the main emphasis: (1) Teachers learn how the natural world can be used to motivate and teach children and how to use school grounds to develop curriculum and support the teaching of hands-on life, and physical science. (2) Teachers learn how to use the interdisciplinary nature of science to assist teaching in other subject areas, and (3) The principal/community leaders learn the value of school site improvements -- through projects such as butterfly gardens, miniponds, and bird feeding/observation stations. Comprehensive team-building forms a local "critical mass" of effort for "hands-on" teaching, with UTOTES giving teachers the confidence and know-how to take students outdoors and to also bring nature into the classroom for a myriad of instructional purposes. The project requested $718,793 from NSF with institutions/agencies and school districts providing 107% of the National Science Foundation in cost sharing.
