May 7, 2020
We are honored to name Annie Strugatsky, 5th Grade Teacher at New Highland Academy in Oakland, as a 2020 Science Super Star!
Annie is a staunch supporter of the idea that teaching meaningful science can transform a student’s learning experience.
| “One of my students, who has low self-efficacy due to his literacy skills, consistently participates and engages in science lessons – and his confidence has soared!” |
She is always looking for ways to integrate subjects with science. Students practice their close reading skills as they read information in their science textbook, using context clues and affixes to understand new vocabulary. She also notes that Science Class is the perfect time to work on sentence patterning. By keeping the language arts portion of science ‘fun,’ like when she assigned them to create juicy sentences using ‘droplets’ while learning about the water cycle, it helps relieve students’ intimidation by the core subject of English.
Math is also easily incorporated in her science lessons. When learning about shadows, her students measured, traced, and collected data about their (and other items) shadows in the morning. They repeated the same test later in the day. They had to convert inches to centimeters multiple times (a practical use to the metric system they learned during math class!) and created graphs to represent their idea.
Annie encourages a use of various materials to bolster her students’ learning. Before experiments, they read textbooks and articles, watch educational videos, and have discussions on their preconceived notions of the subject matter. They state their hypothesis to the rest of the class, which they later can change or expand on.
She often tries to relate her lessons to the ‘real world,’ both in terms of a students everyday life and the events happening world-wide.
When studying decompressors, she had them figure out what kind of environment their earthworms would thrive in. They then had to construct this habitat with materials they could find. Making an experiment personal is a simulating way of having students engage with the lesson deeper.
She introduced the topic of climate change to her class by sharing infographics and watching videos on the New Deal & Carbon Buybacks. They were able to investigate the materials presented to them, discuss it critically, and think about the human impact. Creating an all-engaging learning environment, she pushed them to delve deeper into the phenomena by studying impacts and causes of climate change to write speeches, make signs for, and participate in a school Climate Strike.
Annie took her classroom to visit the MLK shoreline, where her students were able to work with Save the Bay on a restoration project and further developed their understanding of ecosystems and food webs. Her students loved exploring and were able to connect their in-class learning to the natural world.
Annie encourages other teachers to not be afraid of teaching science, and to make use of available community resources:
| “There are so many resources out there- and so many opportunities to interact with science in the community- take advantage of them! Science can also be integrated everywhere :)” |