EMSP in the Spring

Fresh off our trip to the leadership conference in St. Paul, we are very excited to share our experience. The conference featured two speakers. They discussed the importance of safety on the Internet and studying abroad. Internet crimes against children is on the rise and pre-service teachers need to be aware of this. This is an important topic and we are hoping to have the same speaker come down and give a presentation for our cohort.

Another topic we would like to discuss is the opportunity for our cohort to participate in professional development. The two that we will be hosting is a Smartboard Training and Responsive Classroom course. The dates are tentative as of right now, but we are estimating that Responsive Classroom will be in late May and Smartboard will be next fall.

Finally, we have discussed an interest in hosting a meet and eat next fall for the incoming Juniors. However, we would like to make this event more engaging and informative for the Juniors, so we will make things a tad more structured and assign more roles. The event will still be fun! We are expecting to have Papa John's pizza, and hoping that some people in our cohort would be willing to make some dessert and/or appetizer.

We are open for any suggestions! We hope you all will be interested and excited for our opportunities!

EMSP Members
President- Dan
Vice President- Tim
Secretary- Brandice
Treasurer- Jake

Wow! Talk about not being updated in a while! The EMSP board members in Rochester have taken some great steps into getting the Winona State Rochester Education name out in to the public. Our members have introduced a volunteering opportunity for the Winona State Rochester cohort. Our cohort will being volunteering at an elementary school in the Rochester Public School District. This opportunity will help further our cohort's educational experiences. This is in the early stages of development, but will focus on offering STEM activities to students in an after school environment.
The EMSP board has also taken advantage of Winona State Student Senate's funding and have set up two professional development classes for the Rochester cohort to attend. The first professional development course our cohort will be attending will be a Responsive Classroom Training put on by Origins based out of Minneapolis. This event will be held in Rochester on April 17th. The second professional development opportunity will involve SMART board training provided by SSC (Southeast Service Co-Op).
On March 26th and 27th the Rochester EMSP board members will be traveling to St. Paul for the Annual Spring Education Minnesota meeting. We will be looking forward to updating everyone on the activities we will participating in.

Welcome to the new chapter of WSU-Rochester EMSP! First, let us introduce ourselves. Dan Scruggs (President) I am a Elementary Ed. major with a specialty in Social Studies. I am originally from Indiana and currently live in Stewartville with my wife and two children. I am looking forward to continuing the solid base the previous EMSP members have established. Next, The Tim Coleman (Vice President) is originally from Rochester and currently is in Rochester. I enjoy collecting sweatshirts and random books. I am looking forward to enjoying my role as VP. The new (Secretary) is Brandice Hrtanek. I am an Elementary Ed. major with a specialty in Communication Arts & Literature. I currently work with kindergarteners and love it and I can't wait to begin my new career as a teacher!!! :) Finally, Jake Kostel (Tresurer). I am one of the youngest students in the WSU-R Education Department, but is very eager and excited to be apart of EMSP. I currently work at Jefferson Elementary School as a paraprofessional in a Early Childhood Special Education class. I also work part time at PossAbilities of Southern MN as a youth recreation staff. Teaching gives me an opportunity to work with children for the rest of my life, and that is exactly what I want to do.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to the following on their placment to the 2010 W.S.U.-Rochester E.M.S.P Leadership Team!

-

President: Daniel Scruggs
Vice President: Timothy Coleman
Secretary: Brandice Hrtanek
Treasurer: Jakob Kostel

Zebrafish Research Externship

A Lincoln K-8 Choice School/Mayo Clinic/W.S.U.-Rochester Partnership

November 2-6 & 9-11, 2009

My first week of this externship began at the Dr. Stephen Ekker Lab, a Zebrafish Core Facility, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Experiences from this week included academic language pertaining to genetics, discussions of pedagogy in the science classroom, social implications of genetic testing, and working directly with research scientist. During this first week, I was part of the Middle School Module testing the experiment and observing zebra fish development affected by ethanol. This experiment would give middle school students first-hand experience of how fetal alcohol syndrome negatively affects human development. A second week involved scaffolding student learning at Lincoln K-8 Choice School and assisting the middle school science teacher with preparation during the three-day lab. The following are just a few of the highlights of the first week of this externship...

Dr. Stephen Ekker Laboratory/Zebra Core Facility

DAY 1

Monday, November 2^nd

Dr. Chris Pierret, a research scientist at the Mayo Clinic Zebrafish Core Facility, talks to us about harvesting embryos in the tanks room

Why are Zebrafish a model organism for this facility?

Quick Embryo development (gestation 2-3 days versus 9 months in human)

Embryos are transparent compared to a mouse, pig, or human embryo inside the mother

High fertility rate (500 hundred offspring by the end of a week)

A diverse gene-pool compared to lab mice

Vertebrate like Humans

Shares 70% of DNA with Humans

Systems are comparable to a Human’s:

-Eye (both operate during the day versus a nocturnal eye)
-Heart
-Muscle

-Kidney
-Pancreas

-Bones

-Cartilage

DAY 2

Tuesday, November 3^rd

Fluorescent Microscope Training

These microscopes allow a person to see red and green fluorescence if a specimen observed has the expressive gene for fluorescence. This microscope also allows a person to see a specimen under the bright field similar to a dissecting microscope. A color filter is found near the microscope’s base and can change the fluorescence being observed.

So, why would research scientist want to move the fluorescent gene of an algae or jellyfish to the gene of a zebra fish? Besides winning a Nobel Prize for this accomplishment, this ability allows research scientist to attach this gene to a specific part of a zebra fish’s body system that s/he is studying. For example, a research scientist is studying a disease of the blood in humans that can be studied in zebra fish. Well, the fluorescent gene can be attached to the DNA of a zebra fish that creates a part of the blood being studied. Through use of the fluorescent microscope, a research scientist can better study this part of the blood that has the expressive fluorescent gene.

A zebra fish with the gene expression of fluorescence.

DAY 3

Wednesday, November 4^th

Module Work

The 6-8 module team took the control and ethanol groups out and observed them through drawings and snapshots. Unfamiliar with the development of these embryos, we could not see developmental delays in the embryos that Dr. Pierret did observe. Besides injecting Embryo zebrafish with enzymes, we also had the opportunity to de-chorionate zebrafish! This involves removing the chorion that surrounds the embryo.

This day was not nearly has hectic as yesterday when we prepared the ethanol solutions, divided the embryos, submerged the embryos in the ethanol solutions, observed the embryos, and then transferred them into embryonic water!

De-chorionating is a procedure in which a person has two forceps and carefully removes the chorion, or membrane, of a zebra fish. A zebra fish does not necessarily require this membrane to develop.

DAY 4

Thursday, November 5^th

Rochester Area S.T.E.M. Summit

Rochester Community and Technical College

Dr. Stephen Ekker invited the pre-service teachers to the Rochester Area S.T.E.M. Summit at Rochester Community & Technical College! I didn’t know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised. This summit was an opportunity for teachers to bring students to see businesses in the region that incorporate science, technology, engineering, and math. For me, the highlight of the summit was meeting Superintendent Dr. Romain Dallemand and talking with astronaut Bernard A. Harris, Jr!

From left to right: Dr Stephen Ekker, Dr. Chris Pierret, and Dr. Maggie Hoody at the Rochester Area S.T.E.M. Summit

DAY 5

Friday, November 6^th

Large Group Presentation of Extensions

We were encouraged to think outside the realm of the science classroom and think about extension projects that could be developed by students in fields such as social studies and the language arts. Below are my thoughts on student extensions based off of the Dr. Hoody’s excellent 5 Es discussion from Monday.

Math Collect Data from entire class, create bar graph comparing groups, and find any patterns from the data. Students can present this information and emphasize the process of the scientific method and how inconsistent controls and too many variables will skew/muddy an outcome. History How has alcohol consumption by women during pregnancy changed throughout the past 100 years? Is it the same or different from one culture to another? Social Studies How has society reacted to fetal-alcohol syndrome? What education has been placed into society? Is it the same or different from one culture to another? Writing Interview a relative, parent or person in the medical field who works directly or in directly with those affected by fetal alcohol syndrome. Students can research how to facilitate a successful interview. For presentation, the student could orally present the interview or write it up in the form of a paper. Technology can be incorporated by recording the interview and creating a podcast or video podcast. Language Arts Students can read, discuss, and present literature that deals with the issues relating to the misuse of alcohol consumption.

These highlights are just a splash of the numerous opportunities we, WSU-R pre-service teachers, were able to experience during the first week at the Zebrafish Core Facility at the Mayo Clinic. The following weeks were spent at Lincoln K-8 Choice School scaffolding student learning that we experienced for ourselves during the first week of this externship. On a personal note, I look forward to incorporating the zebrafish, modules, discourse, and everything else I experienced this week into my own classroom!

A special thank you to Dr. Maggie Hoody for incorporating the WSU-R pre-service teachers within this magnificent professional development opportunity!

-Kelly James Schrandt

Coming Soon...

• Leadership Team Elections November 23, 2009
• Portfolio Showcase December 7, 2009
• Zebrafish Reflections

Summer MUSEings...

This August a handful of Rochester Education students, former students and in-service teachers attended a week-long profesional development experience called MUSE. This collaboration between The Minnesota Science Mueseum and Winona State University took these teachers on a journey to understand the link between communication, Discourse and STEM integration. We teachers were challenged to define the nature of science, to question our beliefs about intelligence, to understand inquiry-based learning and to unpack the new science standards in an effort to find connections with other disciplines. All of this happened through authentic experiences that placed the teachers in the place of their students. We learned how to apprentice students into the different Discourses. The experiences were rich with language and tools often unfamiliar to us.

On one field trip to a highway cut on US 52, we measured the height of a columnar section called the Decorah Shelf using an inclinometer and a Jacob Staff. Few of us had ever heard of these tools let alone understood what they were used for, but by having an authentic experience we were able to understand that these tools help geologists understand changes in our area. The experience helped us to understand how the shelf is one of the ways our local drinking water is filtered and the need to preserve it. Think of the learning students could gain from such an experience! What we really took away from the experience was the need to teach students that they are the scientist, engineer, and mathematician and how to bridge those disciplines with language.

The week was filled with similar experiences that pulled in language arts, social studies and community building. I really felt connected to science in an authentic way for the first in my life. It is through these experiences that real meaning is made for students. The week was an amazing opportunity and I sincerely appreciate all involved in making it happen!

Colleen Loy