Friday July 4th, 2014 Happy 4th of July!

I am getting really excited for the trip to Colorado. Only 11 days left before I head out to the Keystone Science School. Here is a link to what the school is all about:Keystone Science School. None of this would have been possible without the support of Duke Energy and the Public Education Foundation of Marion County

Duke Energy has been a fantastic supporter of my classroom and through their direct funding I was able to start and run an aquaculture and hydroponics club that achieved great success. Our final report showed this:

" As we discovered this year, aquaculture offers an effective tool for teaching science, but it also offers much more. We were elated when we learned that because of the skills involved in aquaculture participation and calculations, the dynamics of our program improved not only school attendance, but our math and science scores as well. Said scores increased dramatically for aquaculture participants. Hard data from Performance Matters proves that for students who were habitually truant (11 students who missed more than 21 days in the first semester) and joined aquaculture, an overall attendance improvement of 76% in the second semester was observed. Through comparison of the District Benchmark Assessment in November, (Aquaculture participants had an average score of 41%) and the Common End of Course Exams in June, (Aquaculture participants had an average score of 78.81%) which translates into a 92.22% learning gain. Since we had a hydroponic garden available, we achieved modest success in tying our systems together to achieve a lower carbon footprint."

Here are some parting shots from our students releasing the fish back into the river.

Here is a link to the Marion Classroom Connection television program featuring our class!. Jump to 21:04 to see the segment on aquaculture. MCPS Classroom Connection