Best+Practices+-+science

Projects and lessons submitted by attendees:

Zindy Mooney __Visitation School__ Building & testing a model of an earthquake proof building.

Mary Ann Leonard __Columbus School for Girls__ At Columbus School for Girls we are actively promoting the FIRST robotics program in our upper school and have a First Lego League team in middle school and a robotics program for our lower school. We are also using notebook computers in all of our science classes.

Ann Feitl __Convent of the Visitation__ Egg Drop Packages.

Eric Walters __Marymount School__ Creating Weekend Weather Forecasts. Students in our senior elective Atmospheric Science create write and produce short weekend weather forecasts for New York City and for our sister school in Los Angeles.

Ginny Berkemeier __Ashley Hall__ Bioethics. Socratic forum - discussions of books such as Galileo's daughter, US laws such as Roe vs. Wade, stem cell research and stem lines, education for girls across the world and green stewardship.

Brad Rathgeber __Holton-Arms School__ Design Technology Course: Lower School Engineering Program.

Sylvia Rodriguez __Saint Mary's School__ International exchange via the internet.

Rhonda Bush __Ursuline Academy of Dallas__ Digital Applicaitons.

Barbara Fishel and Beverly Lawson __The Hockaday School__ Lower to Upper School all our teachers strive to integrate science technology and engineering in the broadest sense. Students are always asked to consider how the system under discussion works and often design and build model systems to explore further.

Maureen Sullivan __Ursuline Academy of Dallas__ Robotics.

Margaret Kozel __Lincoln School__ Qualitative Analysis Lab - the girls seem to especially enjoy the mechanics of this lab - centrifuging, isolating paricipitates, deductive reasoning. It tends to be a very satisfying lab, giving them a sense of accomplishment.

Hanna Rudnicki __Lincoln School__ All students start Physics and Chemistry in grade 9, followed by Biology in grade 10, and completing Phys/Chem in grade 11.

Jennifer Rundles __Saint Mary's School__ The activity of building various mechanical devices for the Science Olympiad competition such as a plane, flying bird, or robot.

Patricia Hunt __Hathaway Brown School__ I direct HB's Science Research & Engineering Program (SREP), now in its 11th year, in which students in gr. 9-12 conduct cutting edge, multiyear science & engineering research projects under the mentorship of professionals at area research institutions.

Sheri Homany __Hathaway Brown School__ SREP Program.

Meera Shah __Dana Hall School__ Mousetrap Vehicle Races.

Tony Domizio __Castilleja School__ Our "EXPLO" project from last year asked the girls to work in small groups to build a prototype solar water purification apparatus (a small solar still) and then scale up the process to maximize the amount of purified water produced in a 12-hour period.

Doris Mourad __Castilleja School__ The interships available to Juniors and Seniors to work in labs at Stanford is definitely a program which encourages young women in STEM.

Jeanne Appelget __Castilleja School__ Global Challenge Award: Students work in groups of four (two from each country) creating a business plan to ameliorate global warming. Students work through STEM activities and complete their business plan through Skype and emails.

Kathleen Weems __Purnell School__ Research Paper with Rider University where students collect data from the Hamilton Marsh and submit a scientific paper regarding their finding.

Beth Burtch __Hathaway Brown School__ A team of our students participates in the FIRST Robotics Competition.

Sylvia Rodriguez __Saint Mary's School__ International exchange via the internet.

Lisa Riker, Elizabeth Stevens, Chris Weaver __The Hewitt School__

Jennifer Zitt __Louise S. McGehee__

Kitty Burns __NCGS__

Julia Phillips __Marymount High School__ Using a smartboard to work on electron configurations.

Kathleen Cerruti __Santa Catalina__ Stop Lights. Students in a physics class analyze the braking distance, time of yellow lights, and the length of intersections throughout the city where they live. Students can video tape information, collect data, and then form a report to city council.

Angela Magon __Queen Margaret's School__ Baking mole cookies using scientific names and conversion factors to calculate cups.

Faunne Brown __Hutchison School__ An integrated approach that involves interactive notes, classroom activities, demos and practice all related to a common theme. For example, a lesson on optics might include ray diagramming by hand, a mirror/lens demo using an optics bench, and practice.

Lisa Keen __Harpeth Hall School__ Our Science Olympiad teams compete at both the regional and state levels. I have incorporated some of the engineering builds we use for competitions into lectures in my class. For example, we build bridges and boomilevers out of balsa to exhibit strength in design. I use this when talking about bone structure in Anatomy & Physiology.

Chad Sopata __Harpeth Hall School__ The mousetrap car engineering project in 6th grade Science is a great example of engaging our girls in STEM.

Susan Sadler __Hathaway Brown School__ Academy Program-semester long investigative elective in a whole range of topics, many of which focus on Science, Engineering and Technology.

Teni Osinubi __Coretta Scott King YWLA__ Platetectonics

Lyndsey Collins __Coretta Scott King YWLA__ Genetics