Teaching Science from a Historical Perspective

Please follow the links to the pages of interest to you.

Impetus for creating the Teaching Science from a Historical Perspective Method.

What was soon realized is that when students took the MEAP test during their 8th grade year, they did well in Life Science (they had just studied it), they did poorly on the Physical Science (they had yet to learn it) and did okay on the Earth Science (from whatever they could remember).

A switch was then made to General Science in 6th through 8th grade making sure to cover MEAP materials prior to 8th grade. So, I was now supposed to teach Plants, Astronomy, Forces and Motion, Geology, Ecosystems, Pollution, Classification and Scientific Method. Not only did my students have difficulty seeing how their learning was connected, but I found my teaching very segmented and lacking flow.

This, along with taking classes at Aquinas College inspired me to create a new method of teaching science. This method uses a historical timeline to present the science of various eras. The emphasis is placed on the process of how we know what we know, while concentrating on the curriculum standards established by the district.

More information on this method and its benefits can be found by following this link to my Master's Thesis.

Suggestions

As I work on the design and construction of this site I would greatly appreciate and suggestions for making this site better. Also, if you find any links that do not work or any other errors, please email me.

Currently, this site is running as a resource for my students and to access lost assignments or information.

A note on reading packets: At this moment, many of the reading packets are simply lists of information written in paragraph form. The "story" of science is told during discussions in class. I will continue to fine tune theses packets over time.

I would like to thank Bruce Bowden for his talents and for helping me make this site what I wanted it to be.

Thanks for visiting my site.

... Kirt