Innovations
01/09—Students take courses during long bus rides
Some students who spend as much as three hours a day on a school bus in the rural Sheridan, Ark., school district are putting that time to good use: Thanks to the Aspirnaut Initiative, they are able to take advanced math and science courses via laptop computer.
“It was a waste of time to just sit there and do nothing, and long bus rides also mean they don’t have time for other activities,” says Julie Hudson, a professor of clinical anesthesiology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., who created the Aspirnaut program last spring.
About 10 to 15 sixth and seventh-graders are taking Algebra I, AP biology, or other courses on buses equipped with Internet access. All other students on those buses have access to video iPods stocked with short-format videos on science or other educational topics.
Students take the laptops home and may keep them if they participate in the program for three years. The iPods stay on the bus.
Contact: Julie Hudson, info@aspirnaut.org.
School uses wind power as teaching tool
Students in the Sanborn Central School District in Forestburg, S.D., are learning about renewable energy, thanks to a brand-new wind turbine that generates electricity for the rural district’s single K-12 school.
Sanborn is one of eight South Dakota districts selected for the Wind for Schools Project but the first one to have a turbine up and running.
The project is a collaborative effort involving school districts, the South Dakota Public Utilities Association, the East River Electric Power Cooperative, local electric co-ops, and South Dakota State University, which is helping teachers incorporate wind power into the science curriculum.
The turbine won’t reduce the district’s electric bill by much—it isn’t big enough to have much of an impact—but the main objective is education, says Superintendent Linda Whitney.
Students and members of the public will be able to go online and see how hard the wind is blowing and how much power the turbine is providing. She hopes the school’s wind project will encourage students to think about careers in the growing field of renewable energy.
Contact: Linda Whitney, Linda.Whitney@k12.sd.us.
New course aimed at emergency response
The San Francisco school board approved the development of a new elective course to teach students first aid, fire safety, search and rescue, and other disaster response skills.
District leaders began discussing the creation of a new leadership course after the board voted two years ago to phase out the Junior ROTC program. The new Student Emergency Response Volunteers program, however, is designed to “expand leadership opportunities, and is not a replacement for JROTC,” says district spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.
Administrators are working with county experts to determine what the course should cover. The district then will look at the cost and decide whether it should start as a pilot in one or two high schools or be offered more broadly.
Contact: Gentle Blythe, director of public outreach and communications, blytheg@
sfusd.edu.
School created as learning lab for teaching candidates
Philip M. Stockoe Elementary School in Riverside, Calif., is much more than a place of learning for 750 K-5 students—it was designed as a learning laboratory where prospective teachers can unobtrusively observe classrooms and take college courses.
The school was created by the Alvord Unified School District in partnership with Riverside Community College.
About 20 classrooms have windows with one-way glass. Observation corridors allow teaching candidates to look into four classrooms at once and watch experienced teachers without disrupting classes, says former Assistant Principal Jason Burns.
The school’s Innovative Learning Center was designed “to give prospective teachers really outstanding models to learn from,” Burns says.
Most of the adult students are from Riverside Community College, but others are from La Sierra University, the University of California Riverside, and California Baptist University.
In addition to observing classrooms, they carry out student teaching requirements, fulfill their community service hours by tutoring students and assisting teachers, and even take education courses in one of Stockoe’s five college classrooms. Only one college course is held during the school day; the rest are in the evening.
Contact: Katherine Rizzo, principal, katherine.rizzo@alvord.k12.ca.us.