Overview of the Unit and Its Context

OVERVIEW OF THE UNIT

The Water Quality Unit at Boston Latin Academy involved three Chemistry classes in doing some real science while attempting to give them a thorough understanding of water quality issues and principles. The Water Quality Unit actively involved students in using their understanding of Chemistry to investigate one of the most basic necessities of their lives - water. From the first day of the unit, the students were challenged with questions about Boston's drinking and recreational water resources. "What do we mean by 'water quality'?" "How do we get our drinking water?" "How do we know that the water is clean enough to swim in?" These were all questions discussed and investigated by the classes.

The unit focused on natural freshwater bodies in the vicinity of Boston, and approached the topic in terms of six major water quality parameters: Temperature, pH, Turbidity, Dissolved Oxygen, Fecal Coliform, and Total Hardness. The ultimate goal of the unit was to enable the students to knowledgeably analyze and explain the water quality of a natural body of water in terms of the six parameters studied.

CONTEXT

Boston Latin Academy is located on Townsend Street in Dorchester and is one of the three public exam schools in Boston. All the prospective students take the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE) as an admission test. There were 1501 students enrolled in grades 7 - 12 at the end of the 1998-99 school year. The student population was: 27.4% Black, 43.9% White, 20.5% Asian, and 8.0% Hispanic. Boston Latin Academy's students come from every neighborhood in Boston.

The Water Quality Unit was implemented in Jerry Russell's three Chemistry I classes. The Chemistry I course is intended as a basic level college preparatory chemistry class. Classes contained approximately 24 students. The classes met 4 times a week for 48 minutes, and once for a double lab period. Jerry's classroom is equipped with a computer and connected to the Internet. Jerry also had access to a screen projector for the computer. The two chemistry laboratory rooms are separate from the classroom space and are shared by 14 different Chemistry classes. The Water Quality Unit was implemented in April and May of 2000 and lasted 4 weeks.

Reference:
Boston Latin Academy

THE EDUCATORS

Jeremiah Russell

Jerry Russell is a veteran science and mathematics teacher in the Boston Public Schools. He has been using new technologies in his classrooms for about ten years and has found that the use of technology enables his students to become more actively engaged in learning and doing science and mathematics. Over the years Jerry has expanded his repertoire and currently incorporates a variety of instructional technologies into his lessons. He actively uses hand-held technology (TI graphing calculators, calculator based laboratory (CBL) systems, and data collection sensors), PC computers and the Internet.

Jerry has been working with the Teaching for Understanding framework for about two years. He has found that the framework brings him closer to achieving his educational goals through helping to actively engage and involve all his students in learning, accommodating different learning styles, setting high expectations for his students, and allowing the students to demonstrate what they have learned.

Vasilii Petrenko

Vasilii Petrenko is a Master's degree student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has taught Middle School Science for two years at the International School of Dusseldorf in Germany. He plans to return to science teaching in the Fall of 2000 at the Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts.

During coursework at Harvard Vasilii became a true Teaching for Understanding convert. Jerry and Vasilii used the TfU framework to develop the Water Quality Unit. He believes that TfU is a truly powerful way to teach and think about curriculum. Believes that the framework has given him a tremendous amount of focus and perspective on how to design curriculum that is centered around understanding goals, is truly engaging, and results in student understanding. Next year, he plans to use Teaching for Understanding to structure his 11th grade Chemistry curriculum at the Rivers School.

Onto:

• A Detailed Look: The TfU Framework