Workshop and Grant Money Enhance Science Lessons

Mary Ann Hopple teaches seventh graders at Athens Middle School. She attended the Feed the World workshop and has been using what she learned in her classroom. Hopple said the workshop had many benefits. “I always like to network with other teachers—I always walk away with new ideas. I’ve used these new resources in my class. Jim Love from Beck’s Hybrids came and demonstrated drones. That opened up a new world to many of my students. And I really appreciated the money to spend on materials that I could use with my students!”

The Ohio Corn Marketing Program, sponsors of the workshop, also provided grant money to several participants. “I wanted to add more hands-on activities to my classroom. We used the grant money to get test kits for soil, which I used while we were studying the periodic table. The students were able to make some connections with elements from the periodic table as they tested their own soil for different nutrients in the soil. We also tested for pH and determined which plants would be more likely to grow successfully in the soil. For the students who didn’t bring in soil from their own homes to test, we tested soil from an area where we are planning on making a butterfly garden—and we found out that the soil there needs some work!”

Hopple said the grant allowed her to enhance her students’ studies. “Every year, our supplies budget gets smaller. I think it’s necessary that the students DO as much science as they can. I rarely use a textbook because, in my mind, science is so much more than memorizing facts. Science is a way of thinking, and I want my students to know how good science works so that they can read the results of someone’s findings and make sure that good science was used to obtain those results. This grant helped supply me with some materials to use in my classroom that I didn’t have budget money for. It also helped me find new ways to teach some of the topics that I have taught in previous years.”

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