Teachers Expand Science Skills in Courses, Including Garbage Study : Education: Instructors find hands-on method of science not only encourages students but sharpens creative thought and language skills.

Fourteen elementary school teachers from the metropolitan area gather at the Museum of Science in Boston to sort through garbage.

The goal of the project--dubbed “garbology”--is to make hypotheses about whose garbage it is. “This will be great in the classroom,” said Ann Harney, a teacher from Beverly, Mass. “If garbage and mess are involved, the kids will love it.”

As teachers sift through discarded panty hose, used envelopes, newspapers, batteries and a cereal box, they draw conclusions from the evidence and later learn how close their hypotheses came to fact. They are working like scientists and learning to be better teachers in the process.

The project was part of the Museum Institute for Teaching Science, a two-week program in its fourth year of helping elementary school teachers become more science literate. The program’s philosophy is that if teachers have a positive attitude toward science, their students will reflect that attitude whether or not they are scientifically inclined.

Teachers are sent to one of eight participating area museums, including the New England Aquarium, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Manomet Bird Observatory and the Children’s Museum. The museums are sponsored by the National Science Foundation and a number of science-related companies interested in the development of the future work force.

Teachers become students and spend their days “doing science,” rather than reading or teaching it from a textbook. They leave with notebooks full of ways to introduce science into the classroom.

Mary McClellen, a sixth-grade teacher from East Somerville Community School in Somerville, Mass., enjoyed her first summer in the program so much that she returned for a second round this year. After being told last year that her school would departmentalize, McClellen decided science was one of the courses she wanted to continue teaching. “I said I wanted to stick with science,” she said. “Two years ago, if anyone told me I would be saying that, I would have told them they were crazy.”

According to Beverly Perna, Museum of Science outreach program coordinator, the goal of the various museums is to get the teachers to realize the value of interdisciplinary teaching. Instead of sitting before a classroom of young children and saying, “Now it’s time to read, now it’s time to do math,” teachers should let one course naturally flow from another, she said. Science does not have to be simply science in the traditional sense of the word; it can be integrated into the curriculum with any subject that an elementary school teacher normally teaches, Perna said.

An exercise in making cartouches (ancient Egyptian nameplates, which royalty wore as necklace ornaments) involves not only the scientific inquiry necessary to decipher unknown symbols and codes, but also leads the class to discussions and lessons in history, social studies and language, with more than a little art thrown in.

Joan Wolman of Randolph, Mass., has always taught with a hands-on approach to science, but the museum institute has helped her integrate science with other subjects.

“In the past, I would have the kids do an experiment, or demonstrate an experiment, and that would be that. Now, I have them write about their experiences afterward and get them to use their language skills.”

“The importance of science is a sense of discovery,” said Harney, who has spent parts of three summers with the museum institute. “Young kids are at the stage where science is fun. They know if we see an unusual bird in the field, we are going to go out and look at it.”

Like most of the teachers in the program (90% of whom are women), Harney had very little science training.

“We’re striving for a more science-literate nation,” said Amy Stevenson, director of public relations at the National Science Teachers Assn. in Washington.

The goal of the organization, Stevenson said, is to promote the science profession. It sponsors several teacher workshops similar to the museum institute and certifies teachers who have limited science backgrounds, but who are competing in an environment that increasingly values a science education.

To become certified, a teacher must complete 12 semester hours of science courses, including labs, field work and student teaching. “Teachers are finally able to say with confidence, ‘Yes, I have a science background,’ ” Stevenson said.

“Elementary school kids are not afraid of science,” said Ann Donofrio, a teacher from Randolph, Mass. It is often the teacher who does not feel experienced or smart enough to teach the subject, she says. One of the reasons the museum institute and programs like it work is that they become research centers for teachers to turn to throughout the year.

“Science has become a hot topic,” said Frank Gardner, executive director of the museum institute. The program has extended invitations to other museums to visit the workshops and use them as a training program.