Supply kits for grade-school classrooms<\/b><\/p>\n
Supplying all 28 elementary schools with the tools and materials needed to teach and learn science is a big job, but two Kent School District programs are working to have it covered.<\/p>\n
When elementary science students get to explore the physics of levers and pulleys, the behaviors of live insects, or the makeup of an owl pellet, they have the district\u2019s Science Materials Resource Center and Transition Outreach Program to thank.<\/p>\n
The Science Materials Resource Center, called SMRC, is responsible for organizing, stocking and distributing about 600 science kits for elementary classes throughout the district. The kits are part of the district\u2019s hands-on elementary science curriculum, in place since 2003, which allows young students to learn through exploration rather than mere text-book reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the way that kids remember science best,\u201d said Jeff Barth, curriculum coordinator. \u201cIt\u2019s more like real science, too, because they\u2019re actually doing it. Research has shown that if you give the kids a hands-on science lesson first and then they go read about it, it sticks with them much better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SMRC is operated by Amy Spies, who organizes all the necessary materials into easy-to-use kits to be distributed across the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have three different kits per grade level, and they rotate them throughout the year so each class gets to do each kit,\u201d Spies said, adding the kits cover earth science, physical science and life science. \u201cThe teachers just put things together and then everything else is up to the kids. They do all the inquiry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The kits include materials purchased through vendors, and Spies also grows and tends to many of the living organisms \u2014 insects, crawfish, goldfish and plants \u2014 also included. But she can\u2019t do it alone. To help her organize science kits and tend to the creatures grown at the SMRC, she enlists the help of students in the Transition Outreach Program, called TOPs.<\/p>\n
TOPs is a program that instructs former district students ages 18-21 who have some type of developmental disability, aiming to prepare them as contributing members of society with employable skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter high school, we have a lot of kids with developmental disabilities, so we take some of them and help them with the transition into being a member of the community,\u201d said Jim Ewart, para-educator for the program.<\/p>\n
The program puts participants in volunteer positions at first, in order to help them acclimate to the responsibilities of being an employee. Ewart said those temporary positions often help boost participants into full-time paying jobs.<\/p>\n
Six of the 36 current TOPs students now volunteer at the SMRC with Spies, and Ewart said the collaboration benefits both sides.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes patience and understanding on people like Amy\u2019s part, but she\u2019s also saying, \u2018I couldn\u2019t do all this without these guys,\u2019 so it works well for both of us,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is terrific for their self-esteem, for their training, to get them used to being at a regular job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentridge High School graduate Ryan Meyer, 20, a TOPs participant, is one of the six working Monday and Wednesday every week to organize science supplies. He said he\u2019s enjoyed the opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI seem to like it working here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt teaches me a lot of responsibility. We get a lot of goals to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s reached some of those goals, but his next goal is to land a job at Fred Meyer next fall. For now, though, he says he\u2019s good at putting together science kits for the district, and he likes working with the creatures at SMRC.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of bugs like big cockroaches and walking sticks,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
To learn more about the district\u2019s elementary science curriculum, the Full Option Science System, visit www.fossweb.com or the district Web site, www.kent.k12.wa.us.<\/p>\n
Contact Daniel Mooney at 253-437-6012 or dmooney@reporternewspapers.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Supplying all 28 elementary schools with the tools and materials needed to teach and learn science is a big job, but two Kent School District programs are working to have it covered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":5348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5347"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}