From: Michael Geluardi (geluardi@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Sep 07 2004 - 07:09:31 PDT
Message-ID: <20040907140931.28612.qmail@web51303.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 07:09:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Geluardi <geluardi@yahoo.com> Subject: re: Integrated Science
Dear AMT,
My school teaches a required, two year integrated science course (9th and
10th). This is my 3d year teaching it and after lots of talking with other
teachers at my school and at the Exploratorium I'm convinced that teaching
integrated science can be much more complicated to pull off successfully than
subject specific curricula for a number of reasons. I am also convinced that
that the holistic allure of integrated science can be allusive. And then there
are the Integrated Science STAR tests which, in my opinion, are virtually
impossible to prepare for adequately because they end up being a hodge-podge of
diverse information and concepts, some quite advanced, which don't fit into a
reasonable one-year curriculum, especially for 9th or 10th grade students. We
are actually looking into giving the Earth Science STAR test to our 9th grade
I.S. students and the Biology STAR test to our 10th grade I.S. students.
We are halfway through revising our 2 year curriculum and so I've been wading
through a ton of integrated science issues. I think our curriculum is quite
good but it takes a lot of insight to put together. If you would like to talk
with me more, please feel free to send me a personal email and we can chat.
One interesting note is to be aware of the history of high school integrated
science curricula. Some years ago they swept through many schools as a more
realistic way to study science but after lots of work, many schools ended up
dropping it. Like I said, I think we are making it work but I don't think it
is easy and can entail a tough learning curve.
-Mike Geluardi
Piedmont High School, East Bay
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