Fellowship

Another great day at Scion. Some more work with Judy in the Lab, a visit to the quarantine section with Margaret to open a special parcel from England (an opportunity to see the procedures expected from MAF.)Lisa told me where some buddleia plants are and told me that the cleopus 'bugs' are on the plant doing what they are meant to. Photo today is of them both.
I am being 'interviewed' for Scion's internal newsletter. I made sure I went through our media sheet so I don't get it wrong.
Some paper work came thru from John ( its for my tickets to Dunedin) I must keep on top side of this.
End of day not so good when I got my pay slip and I received only $72 for the fortnight. Sue will sort it out.

Fellowship

Before we go to Auckland 14 Feb for our CORE 2 days we have been asked to consider the following question
What are the biggest challenges that face teachers wanting to give their students quality science educational experiences? How do you think that they can be overcome?

I am going to brainstorm a bit here and come back later.Points I want to consider.
What ARE quality science educational experiences? how will I recognise one if it jumps out at me?
How do I make science relevant?I found this in 'Students' attitudes to secondary science and science teaching: A synthesis of findings comparing recent NZCER research with Scion research (Scion is my host organisation and it was great to see that they are interested in the school side of science) -A summary of research for Scion - Andrew gave me a copy -"What was most important was when science content was related to 'real life' or 'real life applications.' Students most memorable recollections of school science often related to experiential science such as field trips and science camps,practical and 'hands on'activities, memorable experiments such as dissections and playing with chemicals, and 'student lead work' such as science fairs and camps.
In the section of this report which asked students what comprises positive experiences of teachers in science ,things like teachers who have a passion for science/enthusiastic/fun, have teaching skills and knowledge of the subject, able to get the message across/variety of explanations/positive teachers offered a mixture of learning and teaching methods and teachers who were genuinely interested in students learning came out.

I will read more but this has given me a good start.
Picture today is Arhopalus ferus

Fellowship

I have met great people at Scion - in the Bio-security and protection team.They are passionate about their work and I am lucky to have this group as my host for my fellowship. This photo is of Tracey -she's a local who won the Scion Suffragette scholarship to help her attend Victoria University. Part of the scholarship is that she works at Scion in the Christmas holidays. Tracey looked after me when we went out in the field earlier in the week as its a bit nervous doing new things -(boy I sound like a real learner (another thing to remember about kids and their learning.)

Fellowship

I did some real science today (although it was at a very basic level.) I liked that it was hands -on. I am starting to think like a primary school kid. I like that!!!

Fellowship

I tried to send my profile to John but it keeps coming back as not being accepted.I am going to get a Scion PC soon.

Fellowship

Another great day and I arrived home absolutely tired as today I went out for 6 hours in the forest checking beetle traps.They were pine bark beetles Hylastes ater and Hylurgus Iigniperda and also the longhorn beetle Arhopalus ferus.
I also had a great conversation with Tracy the student from Victoria who is working at Scion over the holidays. I asked her why she likes science and she talked about her year 6 teacher and how she helped her like science. I will write some more about this later.

Fellowship

I am going to try to blog each night so I have a daily record of happenings plus I can reflect. All this will help me with things like writing my profile.

WOW what a great first day at Scion. I was out in the field looking at Dothistroma sample stands in Kaiangaroa Forest. Plane.Back in after lunch I was introduced to lots of nice people.
Tomorrow morning I am going out with a group to check insect boxes (part of a monitoring trial.) Soon I will get the names of things. I have a desk in an office over at the bio security and protection area. Also, because of Health and Safety I needed to have some steel cap boots to wear out in the field. I have a swipe card and tomorrow afternoon ICT will be setting up my stuff. I met a few people that I already knew (or who knew people like Shortplanx). One said he knew I was coming ages ago because Shortplanx had told him.
I phoned Bob to let him know about my exciting first day because I want to keep in touch with school.The photo is me in the forest today.
Several emails about Fellowship things I MUST be organised so I dont get behind.