North Texas Science teachers are set to introduce new, more innovative science labs.
Remember science labs where you looked under a microscope to find cells? Well, the latest, improved view of cells is nothing like the grainy images you may remember.
"Oh, you're looking at basically the cells of a plant. So, we always tell students that the plants are boxy cells and you can actually see that every now and then. If you scroll really close, you can see the nucleus of the cells. It's pretty cool," said teacher Aubrey Otero.
She teaches 9th-grade biology at Byron Nelson High School in Northwest ISD. She was amazed to see and learn about a new dye that helps students clearly see the concepts she's taught for years.
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"The collaboration is awesome. Being with other teachers from other states. She's from Missouri, and she's from North Carolina, and I'm from Texas. So it's kind of fun to see how we teach differently and how our states are different," she said.
The National Science and Math Initiative's training aims to elevate lab science in classrooms across America. They brought educators to Fort Worth to teach one another.
The lab we observed was taught by Jose Martinez from JJ Pierce High School in the Richardson ISD.
Carter In The Classroom
Focusing on unique things school districts are doing to help children succeed.
Teachers said working together is one thing, but the real magic lies in actually sitting in the seats and being students rather than teachers. Mark Kerkhoff and Richard Taylor both teach science in the Sherman ISD.
"It's a big difference between being in front of the class and being part of the class. And so it helps to, like I said, have that paradigm shift to be able to see it from the other perspective," said Taylor.
"I think it's huge because we see similar students, but yet we have our own takes on kind of what we're seeing. So we can kind of say, 'Hey, are you seeing the same thing? Are you struggling with this?'" said Kerkhoff.
Now, they start class with new tools and clearly new views on making science labs even better.
