Science teacher uses new methods

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November 6, 2009

BY ANNA HERKAMP The Commercial-News Fri Nov 06, 2009, 11:47 PM CST

DANVILLE — Keeping her students interested in class helps Danville High School biology teacher Kathy Hafner stay on top of her game too.

A program aimed at rural communities will help science teachers such as Hafner find new ways to reach their students though technology.

Hafner was accepted this year as a fellow in the Institute for Chemistry Literacy through Computational Science, a program funded by the National Science Foundation and sponsored by the University of Illinois.

Although ICLCS, teachers from across the state will learn new teaching methods and work together to come up with modules, or new programs that teach complicated science lessons in innovative ways.

Hafner officially begins her coursework this summer, but she already has plans for what she’d like to accomplish with some of her students.

Particularly with her introductory-level biochemistry students, Hafner would like to use new software made available by ICLCS that helps students create a “virtual” science experiment.

“They all seem to have a computer gene these days,” Hafner joked about her students, “that we don’t seem to have.”

Being able to go online and do their homework and practice their experiments would help kids who learn visually.

For example, a lab table in Hafner’s classroom holds several containers of eggs in a solution that dissolves the shell. With the new software available to them next year, her students could do a similar experiment online by exposing their virtual “cell” to different environmental conditions.

Other concepts that are more abstract could be shown to students in accessible ways online with computers.

Hafner described one program that might show a molecule being exposed to enzymes, which would cause chemical reactions.

These programs could be used for all students. Her advanced placement biology students could do a similar program, but do more complicated experiments with their program.

Another area that could be used in the program is genetics.

The program could show genetic relationships between organisms and how their evolutionary family tree unfolded over time.

“Kids are so technologically oriented,” she said. “This is one more way to pull them into science.”

The program also would show students that the hard sciences like chemistry and biology can be related to technological applications — and that it’s possible to be good at both subjects and use them at the same time, she said.

Hafner will attend two-week workshops at the university during the next three summers, as well as workshops in the spring and fall. She’ll work with other teachers, as well as professors and researchers in the program.

The work she’s doing sometimes surprises her students — they’re amazed to find out their teacher goes to school, especially in the summer.

“A lot of kids don’t realize how much goes on at the U of I,” she said. “It’s cool for kids to know you don’t quite learning.”

She enjoys keeping up with both technology and cutting-edge advances in science because she likes to learn too.

“It keeps me from getting board,” she said. “You have to do something to keep yourself interested.”

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