Local News

Teachers ‘all shook up’ over lesson
By Jackie Leatherman
Published on: January 27, 2005

The students in classroom 107 at Cibola High School looked a little different on Wednesday.

About 10 of them watched a professor from Purdue University place a glass bread pan on top of two coffee cups. He filled the dish halfway with vegetable oil and sprinkled a little thyme — a common cooking herb — across the top. He slid an industrial light underneath the dish.

"This is a very simple convection demonstration," said Larry Braile, geophysicist and Purdue professor. "What’s going to happen if it heats up enough ... is that the oil is going to rise in the middle ... and it just sets up a convection current. The effect is relatively subtle."

The students already understand convection — how heat travels through the earth’s atmosphere, oceans and its interior — because the students are themselves earth science teachers at Yuma-area high schools and middle schools.

For the first time, the Incorporated Research Institute for Seismology — a national university consortium that collects and distributes seismology data for research and education — came to Yuma to teach a three-day course about how to instruct lessons on earthquakes and volcanoes.

The course — Earth and Space Science Professional Development Project — began Wednesday and will finish Friday.

Professors from Purdue, the University of Texas-El Paso and representatives from IRIS taught two groups of about 10 teachers about new developments in seismology research and how to use demonstrations and new software to teach their students.

Graciela Rendon-Coke, an earth science teacher at Cibola High School, has been working with IRIS on different projects for about seven years. She said her involvement with the organization gave her the connections to bring them to Yuma for the course.

"We are so close to the San Andreas fault, it is so important for people to be aware of their environment," Rendon-Coke said, explaining why the professional instruction was needed in Yuma.

"It will give teachers better hands-on ideas for the students," she said. "I think in a whole, it will improve (students’) intellect."

She said most of all, the course provides additional resources — such as software, Internet sites and demonstration ideas — that teachers can use in conjunction with textbooks.

"Now the teachers can share with the students. It’s coming directly from the scientists to the high schools and junior highs," she said.

As part of the course, Braile also taught local teachers how to use free software containing earthquake and volcano data that students will be able to use.

"They can just see the nature of earthquakes and volcanoes erupt," Braile said. “(It can be used) to lead discussions about problem solving. (Students will have) extensive data that they can explore and discover on their own."

Maureen Garette, a teacher at San Luis High School and part-time instructor at Arizona Western College, said she has been teaching earth science for 11 years.

Garette said the course taught her activities "to get the kids asking questions."

"To have (the scientists) here and even to pick their brains and have them give us the latest information is far better than looking in our textbooks," she said. The scientists, she added, are “shortcuts to new information — they give us the information quick (when) we are still back in the 35 mile-per-hour zone."

Timely dispensation of accurate information is important to area teachers. "We’re a hot spot for earthquakes — we are in a risk zone of four and that is as high as you can get," Garette said. "It’s very relevant."

Jackie Leatherman can be reached at jleatherman@yumasun.com or 539-6852.



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