Area teachers attend environmental workshop at Westfield State

The Westfield River Environmental Center and the Center for Teacher Education and Research (CENTER) at Westfield State College are offering a three-day professional development workshop for K-12 teachers, “Teaching Science in Your Watershed: Using Simple, Scientific Methods to Evaluate Ecosystems,” Wednesday through Friday, July 1-3.

Area teachers will collect field data for analysis, as well as attend classroom sessions.  Faculty at Westfield State will lead all sessions. Participants will learn about the basics of field ecology, focusing on concepts such as aquatic macro-invertebrate diversity, ecosystem quality indices, terrestrial ecological variables, effects of invasive species on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

Participants also will engage in specific activities relevant to their classroom, including field ecology techniques, basic mapping skills using Google Earth, scientific method using experimental design, and connecting activities to Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Frameworks.

Classes on campus will be in Wilson Hall, Room 213 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Fore more information, contact Jennifer Hanselman, assistant professor in biology at 413-572-5772 or at jhanselman@ws.ma.edu, or Priscilla Miller, director of the WSC Center at pmiller@wsc.ma.edu.