HCS teachers attend NASA Institute

Four Homewood City Schools teachers were selected to participate in three-day NASA Institutes recently. Shades Cahaba teacher Jenny Phillips (second grade) and Edgewood teachers Katie Thomas (kindergarten), Emily Blackstock (fourth grade) and Lora Haghighi (fifth grade) were selected based on their teacher leadership and interest.  

During the Institutes, the teachers were trained by education staff in the use of NASA education products specific to their grade bands and aligned to the new Alabama Course of Study: Science. They also toured the Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center Museum and developed model lessons and units.  

“This was hands down the best professional development I’ve ever received,” Jenny Phillips said. I learned so much in such a short amount of time, and I was fascinated by how knowledgeable our instructor, John Weiss, was. He was a former high school physics teacher who now works for NASA and teaches teachers.”  

The teachers also heard about real-world applications of the standards through discussion-style presentations by NASA subject-matter experts in science and engineering.  Each day included time for processing the given information and for collaboration with grade-band colleagues from around the state to prepare model lessons and units incorporating the NASA resources.

The teachers will now serve as Learning Community experts as they co-present workshops within their region that are focused on the model lessons and units developed during the Institutes. They will act as first-level supports for the implementation of those lessons over the next two academic years.

“Our instructor shared all of the K-2 NASA resources for Earth science, physical science, life science, and space science,” Phillips said. It was then our job to take those NASA resources, align them with our new science standards, and create lesson plans on ALEX to be published. Katie Thomas and I wrote a kindergarten lesson plan about observing the effects of sunlight by cooking s’mores in a homemade solar oven.”

The primary goals of this program are to strengthen understanding of the new science course of study, to provide resources for teaching the science standards, and to develop a Learning Community network of educators throughout the state with the potential to maximize student success in science learning.  

– Submitted by Homewood City Schools.