Professional Development at the Museum
Our Educator Resource Center has invited local teachers to participate in a yearlong professional-development program built around the Museum’s citizen-science initiative, ProtectCLE. Through this program, known as the ProtectCLE Professional Learning Community (PLC), teachers will explore best practices for science education and engage with Museum scientists to enhance their content knowledge. We recently hosted our fourth PLC session, which began with a delicious dinner and an opportunity to reflect on the value of the professional-development community to us and to our students. The dinner was followed by a book-pass activity, which was essentially speed dating with books! Participants recorded the book title, author, and at least one comment about the book before the timer signaled it was time to move on to the next literary candidate. This activity will be an effective way to introduce students to different books on a particular subject and gauge their interest in that book or its relevance to an assignment.
We were then joined by Dr. Jim Bissell, Director of Natural Areas and Curator of Botany, and Trish Fox, Assistant Collections Manager of Botany, in an informative discussion about the Museum’s contributions to preserving natural areas and local flora. For many of us, it was our first time exploring an herbarium, which is where the Museum preserves and stores all of its plant specimens. We were amazed to discover that some specimens dated as far back as the 1800s and that plant specimens can last for hundreds of years if preserved properly! The preservation of these plants is an excellent example of how science and art can be combined to create something that is both beautiful and scientifically useful. Trish showed us the components of the Museum’s plant press and demonstrated how it works. It was surprising how quickly plants dry out in the press, ranging from two to seven days depending on their moisture content. The plants can then be artfully mounted.
Dr. Jim Bissell also spoke about the evils of invasive species and how they are destroying our native habitats. One such species is the narrow-leaf cattail, which can produce an astonishing number of seeds (approximately 200,000 seeds per plant!) that can survive dormant for hundreds of years after they have been dispersed by the wind. Even in places where the cattails haven’t been spotted in years, care must be taken when the lake levels drop; this provides the perfect conditions for seeds long ago deposited in the seed bank to restore dormant populations of these opportunistic invaders. These “bully” plants grow so densely that all other plants are crowded out and unable to grow, including many of our native plants.
Back in the classroom, we spent the remainder of our time getting down and dirty, exploring soil samples with different tools and kits that can be borrowed from the Educator Resource Center’s Lending Library. Participants had the chance to interact with the chemical, physical, and biological properties of soil collected from a variety of sites. Soil samples were tested for levels of phosphorus, nitrates, and potassium, as plants and animals require certain levels and proportions of these important chemicals. We also used microscopes to look at tiny critters that live in the soil, and we compared the color and texture of our samples to determine soil type. The ability to borrow these tools from the Museum, as well as the practice we gained by testing them out during the program, will help us facilitate the different ways our students can interact with our Biocubes at school.
To end our evening together, we enjoyed hearing how other teachers are carrying out their Biocube projects and implementing their action plans in their classrooms. It gave us some great ideas to try with our students! We also look forward to trying out the book-pass activity the next time our students are looking for resources for a particular project on which they are working. We anticipate that it will help them to focus on the important information in the book and decrease the time spent on resources that are not relevant to their topic.
The ProtectCLE Professional Learning Community has provided invaluable networking opportunities that have allowed us to connect with people who can help us take our students’ experiences and learning to the next level. This session was no different. Several members of the professional-development community, both Museum staff and fellow classroom educators, shared with us experiences and resources that we intend to use to plan a field trip with our students to celebrate the first Ohio Native Plant Month this April through a meaningful stewardship project.
Altogether, the evening was rich with camaraderie, exploration, and the fellowship of like-minded individuals, dedicated to improving themselves as educators and creating deeper learning experiences for their students. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History provided the learning environment, expertise, and passion to allow participants in the session to make the fullest use of this opportunity.
All photos courtesy of Rana Bottino
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