Lakeview Elementary fifth grade students Alicia Zhang and Rachel Strandberg had the opportunity to present a science instruction to students and teachers as part of a “Student Centered Science Symposium” on May 9 in Oshkosh.
Alicia and Rachel worked with students from several area school districts to plan the presentation. The opportunity was provided as a result of a Cooperative Educational Service Area (CESA) 6 Gifted and Talented grant project funded by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Both students are part of the magnet class at Lakeview taught by Tricia Retzlaff.
The students submitted an essay about their experience:
We were the two lucky students chosen to represent Neenah at the CESA 6 Student-Centered Science Symposium of 2014. Our experience was one of a kind and we will never forget it. One of the most awesome parts of our experience was teaching our class, and being some of the youngest fifth graders in our class, it was so epic to teach kids older than us. We also learned that being a teacher is MUCH harder than it seems.
Our expectations for the students included researching an animal, writing a good report on that animal, and doing an animal-safe experiment on that type of animal. We found that there were lots of ways to ensure that this happened; we used KWLs, Venn Diagrams, a final Science Fair, and more. Also, if students did not have an animal to use, we could provide them with a dog, a parakeet, a hamster, or a gecko if necessary.
We skipped school 4 days throughout the school year to visit CESA6 in Oshkosh and plan our unit, and we also had the great opportunity to meet kids from other school districts. Our main unit focus was zoology. Both of us knew right away that we wanted to do the unit on animals, being animal lovers since we were little toddlers. We loved going, and hope that other kids like us get to experience what goes into a single unit (and being a teacher). Thank you, CESA!!!!
-Alicia Zhang and Rachel Strandberg |