Science in the SEAMLESS Day: An Interdisciplinary, Urban, Multicultural Enhancement Program for Elementary School Teachers

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Arthur Camins is the Science Coordinator for New York City's Community School District 16. Mr. Camins has designed a collaborative elementary teacher enhancement project with Community School Districts 18 and Brooklyn College. These school districts are located in Brooklyn, and include Bedford-Stuyvesant and other high minority and low income areas. This project would train more than half of the 1,000 teachers in the 25 elementary schools in these districts in constructivist inquiry-based approaches to interdisciplinary science teaching. The intent of this comprehensive district-wide effort is to create a "seamless" day in which science forms an integral part of instruction in all subject areas. Education and science faculty from Brooklyn College would act as resources in the project, and staff trainers from Lawrence Hall of Science and other curriculum developers would instruct teacher trainers in several exemplary hands on curricula. Teachers, principals, and school administrators will receive hands on training. In addition, exemplary teachers will receive additional training that will prepare them to act as mentors for pre-service teachers from Brooklyn College. The project includes several other extensions, such as a summer science camp, a materials support center, and supervisory training. This comprehensive approach to science instruction can have significant and lasting impact in the classrooms of these underserved school districts. Science will become a vehicle for teaching reading, language arts, music, social studies, and all other subjects. Math instruction will use data gathered by the students during their science activities, thereby reinforcing the relationships among subject areas. This integration of subject areas will be modelled through an internship program for teachers in training at Brooklyn College, making this a systemic and potentially permanent change in science teaching in Brooklyn. Cost sharing on this project amounts to 63% of the NSF contribution.