A World of Possibilities

Brookwood is a bigger school these days. The numbers in our classrooms haven’t changed much, but our classrooms themselves have expanded to include teachers and students, countries and cultures, all over the globe.

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oday we live in a fluid new world in which technology, mobility, economics, and geopolitics have led to unprecedented levels of global interconnectedness. Daily headlines remind us that what happens in South Carolina and South Sudan impacts us just as it does our planetary neighbors.

Supported by our solid mission and a forward-leaning Strategic Plan (Today. Tomorrow. Together.), Brookwood is preparing students to meet the challenges, embrace the responsibilities, and appreciate the rewards of global citizenship. We believe our students must gain the technological savvy, language and media literacies and cross-cultural communication skills that will be essential to their lives and careers in the 21st century.

Building on the foundation of our rigorous academic program, Brookwood’s global initiatives are evident at the school across departments and throughout divisions. Our teachers are developing curricula based on current research and inclusive of multicultural perspectives. Together with experts in the field, they are designing opportunities for experiential, “real-world” problem solving. And they are inviting our young learners into local, national, and international collaborations.

We know you will find the nine global initiatives profiled in the following pages inspiring. They are examples of the many projects currently underway or in the planning stages; they are windows into the ways Brookwood is imagining and realizing a world of possibilities for our children.

Additional multi-media content is included in this feature section. Download a free QR code reader app to access content.

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Partnership Program Goal: Develop global learning opportunities for students and teachers, including project-based academic partnerships and the Educator Exchange

Global Initiatives Coordinator Martha Fox welcomes Jolly MUKASE, Headmistress of FAWE Girls’ School in Rwanda and a 2011-2012 Exchange Educator.

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Exchanging Educators, Exchanging Knowledge

By Martha Fox, Global Initiatives Coordinator

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n the summer of 2011, Brookwood science teacher Rich Lehrer and I traveled to Rwanda as SEVEN Fund Teaching Fellows with a group of teachers from across the United States. In the capital, Kigali, we visited FAWE Girls’ School, a “Centre of Excellence” for grades 7 through 12 with a focus on science, math, and technology. From the moment Rich and I set foot on the campus, we recognized FAWE as a kindred school for Brookwood.

The exuberant, articulate students who welcomed us, like our own, were tangible evidence of a shared vision for educating global citizens who can advocate and act with confidence and compassion.

It was hard to say goodbye to FAWE, so we didn’t! That fall, Brookwood and FAWE Girls’ School established an Educator Exchange that aims to develop cultural competence skills in our communities. From its planning through the two-week teacher visits during the 2011-2012 school year, our reciprocal collaboration has enhanced our global education program. The Exchange boosts curricular partnerships centered on real-world problem solving, and expands our schools to include classmates and colleagues on another continent.

The 2011-’12 Exchange Educators were Doug Fodeman, Brookwood’s Technology Director, and Jolly Mukase, Headmistress of FAWE Girls’ School, Rwanda. To read about Doug’s experience at FAWE see pages 22-23.

Jolly Mukase’s visit to Brookwood was illuminating.

Her presence on campus energized our whole community and, in two whirlwind weeks, made the world a neighborhood. It also deepened our academic partnerships with FAWE because virtual contact was enhanced by person-to-person relationships.

During her visit, Brookwood and FAWE students Skyped and interacted in web-based classrooms. Brookwood’s older students learned, in developmentally appropriate ways, Rwanda’s lessons about conflict and reconciliation. The children also gained a clearer sense of the diversity of the countries that make up the African continent. And beyond all that, seeing our own culture through Jolly’s eyes gave all Brookwood students a fresh perspective on the essential Personal Growth and Development (PGD) question, “Who are we?”

As I think about the many personal and professional “ah-ha” moments that occurred during the Teacher Exchange visits at FAWE and Brookwood, those that happened spontaneously each day at Brookwood keep rising to the top.

Everywhere Jolly went in our school, she was met by students with broad smiles, outstretched arms, and “Hello, Mrs. Mukase!” carefully pronounced just right.

Yes, there are ample examples of the academic benefits of the Exchange. Equally important are the personal connections that Brookwood has always affirmed are at the heart of enduring learning.

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(Clockwise from top left): Jolly MUKASE meets with Middle Schoolers; the Rwandan flag flies in honor of the Exchange Educator Jolly MUKASE; Lower School Head Nancy Evans and Jolly MUKASE visit a first grade classroom; Global Initiatives Coordinator Martha Fox with Exchange Educators Technology Director Doug Fodeman (2011-’12) and Athletic Director Jane Pirie (2013); Eighth graders Skype with FAWE students

And the 2013 Exchange Educator is . . .

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e’re thrilled to announce that Jane Pirie will visit FAWE Girls’ School for two weeks in February as Brookwood’s second Exchange Educator. As Brookwood’s Athletic Director and Grade 8 Advisor, Jane brings new dimension to our Rwanda partnership through physical education and health. During her time in Kigali, Jane says she hopes “to help the FAWE School continue their journey to empower their students while supporting young women in becoming more confident learners and leaders.”

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Partner School: FAWE Girls’ School, Kigali, Rwanda

As the 2011-’12 Exchange Educator, Technology Director Doug Fodeman spent two weeks at FAWE Girls School in Kigali, Rwanda.

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From Brookwood to FAWE: Forging a Connection

By Doug Fodeman, Director of Technology

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nce Brookwood and the FAWE School in Kigali, Rwanda, decided the schools’ collaboration would include a teacher exchange, it quickly became apparent that technology would be important to the project. As Brookwood’s Director of Technology, I was honored to be selected for the 2012 Educator Exchange and was eager to facilitate and grow both the personal and technological relationship between the two schools.

Additionally, since FAWE’s educational focus is on science and math, I looked forward to sharing the skills I had gained as a high school science teacher for 18 years before I came to Brookwood.

With the objectives of representing Brookwood (and Americans in general) in a positive light and introducing FAWE to Brookwood’s caring community, I made the 17-hour trip to Rwanda on February 10, 2012, and stayed there for two weeks.

I lived with the Headmistress’s family in their home on the school grounds.

At FAWE, I spent my time getting to know my host community and Rwandan culture, teaching computer classes, offering teacher training sessions, advising FAWE on ways to improve technology at the school, and developing the means for the growing academic partnerships between FAWE and Brookwood. I also facilitated Skype sessions between students and classrooms at the two schools as well as helped develop online forums through which students in Manchester and Kigali could dialogue.

The interaction I witnessed between the children was thrilling. I daily saw students in both schools growing and learning as they met, connected, and shared their cultures, their classroom work and their school experiences.

And the exchanges were numerous. Brookwood’s eighth grade girls and the FAWE girls danced and sang for each other via Skype and a senior FAWE student posted riddles online for our fifth graders to solve. One of the FAWE Prefects (student leaders) conducted a lesson for Brookwood’s eighth grade science students on covalent bonding, and seventh and eighth grade students in the schools shared poetry and drawings in an online blog. Importantly, Brookwood’s older students learned about the history of the 1995 genocide in Rwanda and, through that, gained a deeper understanding of the Holocaust in Europe.

I, too, interacted regularly with Brookwood’s classrooms, teachers and students and documented my experiences in a blog and video footage for the community to use. The essays I wrote during my stay are available online at The Global Classroom blog: http://www.brookwood.edu/wordpress/theglobalclassroom The tangibles of this newly-formed relationship are valuable beyond measure,

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and there is so much Brookwood students can learn by interacting in a meaningful way with people from other countries and cultures. The Educator Exchange has done a great deal to begin to tear down bias, prejudice and assumptions about Africans in general and Rwandans in particular.

I am grateful for this trip on so many levels. Foremost

personally are the friendships I developed with FAWE’s teachers and students as well as with the MUKASE family.

But equally significant is the knowledge and understanding I gained of Rwanda and its wonderful people. With that I hope to develop the wisdom to be a better cross-cultural ambassador and to share that growth and understanding with my Brookwood students.

(Clockwise from top left): Doug Fodeman teaches a lesson; FAWE student leaders present Doug Fodeman with gifts of appreciation; Doug Fodeman with FAWE Headmistress Jolly MUKASE; a FAWE math classroom

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Partner Schools: D-Lab at MIT, the Kasiisi Project (Uganda), FAWE Girls’ School (Rwanda), Colégio Bandeirantes (Brazil), the Graded School (Brazil)

Grade 8 Science Teacher Rich Lehrer has initiated Brookwood’s Global Efficient Cookstove Education project in collaboration with MIT’s D-Lab.

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Cookstoves: Scientific Principles and Global Lessons

By Rich Lehrer, Grade 8 Science Teacher and Advisor

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n March of 2011, I received a generous teaching fellowship from The SEVEN Fund foundation to travel to Rwanda to investigate the connection between science education and enterprise solutions to poverty.

As I prepared for this trip, I contacted MIT’s D-Lab to see if the faculty there would be interested in helping me as I worked to incorporate issues associated with global development into the lessons of my eighth grade science class. D-Lab, which is a suite of 16 classes centered around the philosophy of improving “the quality of life of low-income households through the creation and implementation of low cost technologies,” was started in 2002 by MacArthur Genius Grant winner and MIT alumna, Amy Smith. I can honestly say I was not prepared for the enthusiastic response I received from the staff of this amazing program.

In September of 2011, Amy Smith and D-Lab faculty member, Jessica Huang, spoke with me and expressed their interest in developing an education outreach program for local schools. We began looking for ways to teach middle school students about physical science by having them delve deeply into real-life global problems in need of technological and scientific solutions.

One of the projects that I developed in the spirit of the D-Lab philosophy is Brookwood’s Global Efficient Cookstove Education Project. Amy, Jessica, and others at D-Lab served as a sounding board as I worked with the teachers from four schools—The Kasiisi Project (Uganda), FAWE Girls’ School (Rwanda), Colégio Bandeirantes (Brazil), and The Graded School (Brazil)—to develop an internationally collaborative design challenge project in which students from each of the four countries researched, built, tested, and shared information about biomass stoves. Brookwood students concluded the project by working with the founders and engineers of the Proyecto Mirador stove project in Honduras to build one of their Justa wood stoves on Brookwood’s campus.

The goals of the Global Efficient Cookstove Education Project are to have students: 1. Discuss the scientific concepts inherent in the use of five different biomass stoves, including but not limited to: energy resources, climate change, the chemistry of combustion, efficiency, energy transformations, thermal energy, conduction, insulation, experimental design, and so on; 2. Learn about the human and environmental issues that accompany the use of inefficient biomass stoves around the world, including deforestation, respiratory health effects, climate change, and gender inequity. Learn about the benefits of improved stove design; 3. Document their efforts and then attempt to educate others about the issues associated with the global cookstove movement; 4. Work and collaborate through Skype and email with students in Rwanda, Uganda, and Brazil in order to learn more about these individuals, their schools, their home lives, and their countries; realize that in spite of obvious differences, peoples’ common values, experiences, and humanity make us more alike than different.

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(Clockwise from top left): an MIT D-Lab instructor prepares to test cookstove emissions with Brookwood students; students from the Kasiisi Project in Uganda Skype with Brookwood students in order to compare stove testing results and learn more about each other in the process; groups of Brookwood students compete in a design challenge to compare stove efficiency

One aim of the project was also to help students begin to truly understand what half the earth’s population goes through in order to meet their daily energy needs. As students in our Steep Week Cookstove class (see page 64) spent increasing amounts of time each day collecting wood from Brookwood’s campus for the day’s activity, they experienced the physical discomfort of spending time close to burning stoves and became more and more exhausted after four days of the routine. I believe they began to appreciate how difficult it would be to do this day in, day out for a lifetime. When Erik Wurster of UpEnergy (a company supporting stove programs in Rwanda), shared with the students how difficult it was for him to guess the age of Rwandans because of the physical toll taken by living in poverty and leading a subsistence existence, it truly resonated with the students.

This project was absolutely replete with “teachable moments”—many of them planned, most of them not— when Skype conversations between Brookwood students and their peers in other countries inevitably drifted beyond the prescribed stove topics. My students heard their Ugandan partners express frustration at elephants and chimpanzees coming out of Kibale National Park to raid their gardens. They gained an understanding of the importance of girls’ math and science education in

developing countries through conversations with students at the FAWE Girls’ School. Newly-met friends from São Paulo did their best to help my students understand what it is like to live in a city of 20 million inhabitants.

It was particularly enjoyable to hear my students attempt to explain things that for them were commonplace, yet about which their global partners knew very little. To hear Brookwood students try to explain ice hockey (“imagine shoes with razors on them”) or marshmallows to rural Ugandan students who knew nothing of either was as enlightening for me as it was for my students. Listening to Kasiisi students reveal that they grew their own energy resources in the form of Sesbania and Eucalyptus plantations that were cut for firewood prompted some Brookwood students to admit that they didn’t know what form of energy their home stoves used (“How do I know if I have an electric or a propane stove?”) or how their houses were heated. It was an exchange that helped emphasize how removed many of us are from much of our daily food production and resource use.

The enthusiastic response to this work on the part of everyone, from students to some of the leading members of the efficient stove community, confirms that we are on the right track with this approach to science education.

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Partner Organization and Schools: Children in the Wilderness and five Zimbabwean schools – Victoria Falls Primary School, Jabulani School, Mpindo School, Kapane School and Ziga School

Brookwood Science teachers Ben Wildrick and Annie Johnson are planning a third visit to Zimbabwe to provide teacher training and support.

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Envisioning a Cross-Continental Virtual Science Classroom

By Annie Johnson, Grade 6 Science Teacher and Ben Wildrick, Grades 1-4 Science Teacher

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uring the summer of 2011, we traveled to five schools in northwest Zimbabwe, all situated near Hwange National Park. We were in Zimbabwe for five weeks, spending approximately one week in each school. Children in the Wilderness (CITW) hosted us in Zimbabwe and the El-Hefni Technical Training Foundation funded our travel and expenses. CITW has established partnerships with many schools and has a mission to develop school children into leaders and stewards of the land through place-based science education. We returned this past summer for a shorter threeweek trip, revisiting three of the five schools and solidifying relationships with faculty and principals.

During both visits, we worked to forge meaningful relationships and dialogue with the Zimbabwean educators, provide training specifically in innovative teaching techniques that would support and enhance each school’s science curriculum. We engaged the students and teachers in experiential, hands-on science lessons while nurturing a positive connection to their local natural world. The El-Hefni Foundation provided a wealth of science materials and school supplies to each project school, which greatly enhanced our efforts.

Our focus thus far has been on teacher training, and we hope to return next summer to continue our work in these rural schools. In the future, we hope to link our Brookwood science classrooms to the classrooms in Zimbabwe. Our dream is to build a cross-continental virtual science classroom, in which students in both Manchester and Zimbabwe share observations of the plants, animals, and habitats near their schools. There are many interesting comparisons to be made, and all of the students—those here at Brookwood and those in Zimbabwe—would benefit from studying the similarities and differences between their local ecologies.

Ben: “One compelling moment for me as an educator was the realization that although I was working with students half-way around the world in a completely different culture, they learned the same way that Brookwood students learned. The second graders I worked with in Zimbabwe were in many ways archetypal seven-year-olds. Once they touched, grasped, sniffed and ogled something, they could engage intellectually and would begin asking question after question. In short, they were strikingly similar to Brookwood’s seven-year-olds.”

Annie: “I have never been more challenged as an educator than during my time in Zimbabwe. With scarce resources, a significant language barrier, decades-old rote teaching methods in place, and nagging self-doubt, some of my tasks felt impossible. Yet improvisation, flexibility and creativity became my greatest allies, and I was able to stretch my capabilities as a teacher.”

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(Clockwise from top left): Brookwood teachers with all of the faculty from Mpindo School in northwest Zimbabwe; Annie Johnson shows a chameleon to a student from Victoria Falls Primary School; Ben Wildrick plans a lesson with Thelma, a second grade teacher from Mpindo School; students at the Jabulani School observe a bug under a magnifier for the first time

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Partner Organization and School: Million Trees Project/ Roots and Shoots Shanghai and Kulun Qi School, Tongliao, Inner Mongolia, China

Mandarin teacher Elizabeth Hammett is helping to coordinate support for a Brookwood Roots and Shoots forest, with a goal of planting 1,000 trees in the Mongolian desert.

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Brookwood’s Mandarin Messages Travel to Mongolia

By Elizabeth Hammett, Grades 5-8 Mandarin Teacher

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oots and Shoots is an organization founded by Dr. Jane Goodall to help youth tackle problems in their communities. Children identify the issues (often environmental) and work to solve them. To learn more go to rootsandshoots.org.

The members of the Roots and Shoots Shanghai chapter (http://www.jgishanghai.org/) identified desertification in Inner Mongolia as a problem they would like to solve and from this grew the Million Trees Project (MTP). The Gobi desert is spreading at an alarming rate, taking over much of the grazeable farm land. Sand storms in the Mongolian desert affect the air quality in major Asian cities, and the dust sometimes travels all the way to the US. MTP leads tree-planting trips for high school students and corporate donors to the border of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia. They plant trees that are native to the region and create a barrier to help stem the encroachment of the desert onto ever-scarcer cultivable land. Read more at www.mtpchina.org.

Thanks to a generous Brookwood Parents’ Association grant, I traveled to Inner Mongolia this summer to see the MTP project firsthand. I met the group in Shanghai and then traveled with them to Inner Mongolia to help plant pine trees. While there, I also did some factfinding for Grade 5 science teacher Henry Oettinger, who is including desertification as part of this year’s fifth grade science curriculum, as well as for Grade 8 science teacher Rich Lehrer, who wanted to know about the cookstoves used in the region for his global efficient cookstove work.

But best of all from my perspective, was that I also hand-delivered 17 letters, all carefully crafted in Chinese by my Brookwood sixth grade Mandarin students, to the Kulun Qi students. Quite fortuitously, MTP was also looking to coordinate pen pal projects and Brookwood’s sixth graders were the inaugural class of American kids to correspond with the kids in Inner Mongolia. The letters were last year’s final exam for my students and were the culmination of all they had learned.

Writing letters to the Kulun Qi students will be an integral part of this year’s seventh grade Mandarin curriculum as it is a great opportunity for students to use language skills in a meaningful way. Chinese can often seem as though it is only spoken in faraway lands and opportunities to practice it are somewhat difficult to come by, especially as it usually takes longer to learn than Spanish or French.

Given the vast communications options available today such as Skype, email and the Internet, you might wonder why the children in the two schools don’t simply connect online. This is not even an option because resources in the Mongolian village are very scarce. Few, if any, people in town have computers (the school certainly does not) and Internet can only be found at the local hotel.

However, this seeming disadvantage is in fact a great opportunity! Chinese characters are a wonderfully unique way of writing, and as they are only loosely

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tied to the phonetic system, the learning of characters is, in the beginning, somewhat divorced from the learning of speech. While Brookwood’s Mandarin students will have other opportunities to Skype with Chinese speakers, the imperative for written communication is a wonderful way to practice their handwriting.

This partnership has benefits that to me are very similar to those of the collaboration with Rwanda’s FAWE School. I think it is often difficult for Americans to truly understand and put into context what it means to be poor. This was a hard-learned lesson for me during my trip to Tanzania last year, as I know it was for many of the faculty who have travelled to Africa. My impression is that resources in Kulun Qi are similarly scarce and the people similarly hardy. Putting faces to the stories and the concepts of lack of resources will hopefully help our students to move beyond an intellectual idea of poverty, and into a personalized understanding of how people in other parts of the world live.

Another lesson our students will learn through this partnership is that China is a vast nation with 56 ethnic groups. Over 90% of the population is Han Chinese, but the outer regions of China are more heavily populated by other ethnic groups. Much of what the Western world “knows” about China comes from our exposure to large cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. It is sometimes difficult for students to understand that not all of China is “Chinese.”

Inner Mongolia, for example, is only 79% Han. Learning about our pen pals’ lives in Inner Mongolia will provide valuable context for the understanding of diversity in China.

Inner Mongolia is one of China’s five “Autonomous Regions” areas that are (at least somewhat) self-governed, and often set aside for an ethnic minority (i.e. Tibet is largely Tibetan, Xinjiang is largely Uighur, etc.) Discussing life in Inner Mongolia will be a great way to help the students contextualize the political situation in China, as well as the complexity that is local and national governance.

One thing I have been struck by is the interconnectedness of the Kulun Qi School project and all the other initiatives currently underway at Brookwood. For example, Dr. Oettinger is teaching about desertification in fifth grade, the year before the Mandarin students write their first pen pal letters to students living in an area experiencing this environmental problem. When those same children get to eighth grade, they will learn in science class about efficient cookstoves with Mr. Lehrer. Having corresponded with students in Inner Mongolia will give them a context for understanding the scarceness of resources, a major part of the cookstove topic.

(From top): Elizabeth Hammett in the Roots and Shoots Standard Chartered Bank Forest; campers on the edge of the desert in Tongliao; volunteers work in the Summer 2012 Roots and Shoots planting site

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Partner Organization/ Program and School: Salem Sound Coastwatch/ Adopt a Beach Program and Deep Creek Middle School, Eleuthra, Bahamas

Science Teacher Dr. Henry Oettinger and History Coordinator Sven Holch accept the Massachusetts 2012 Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Energy and Environmental Education.

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Adopting a Beach, Caring for the Planet

By Henry Oettinger, Grade 5 Math and Science Teacher and Sustainability Coordinator, and Sven Holch, Grade 5 Teacher and History Coordinator

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or the third consecutive year, our fifth grade students are working in collaboration with Salem Sound Coastwatch (SSCW), a local non-profit coastal watershed organization that protects and enhances the environmental quality of the Salem Sound Watershed.

Our fifth graders have “adopted” Black Cove in Manchester (located between Tuck’s Point and Boardman Lane) as a part of SSCW’s Adopt a Beach program, with each of the three fifth grade classes working as environmental monitors.

Each group visits Black Cove three times a year (once per season) for a total of nine visits by our school to the site.

The goal of our long-term, multi-year service-learning project is to reacquaint students with the outdoors—specifically with a part of the local marine environment of Black Cove and the Chubb Creek outlet. We also educate students about watershed biology, including the notion that the health of our oceans can be affected by everyday events like use of fertilizer, pesticides, trash disposal, etc.

Thirdly, we introduce students to scientific methods used in any long-term study of the environmental health of this marine ecosystem. And finally, our collaboration with a local non-profit (SSCW) aims to contribute real and useful data to help monitor the health of Salem Sound.

Our academic objective is to reinforce aspects of the scientific method (such as observation and data collection) and tie in to other topics we study in fifth grade science, such as microplastics in the environment. As always, we want our students to develop the skill to ask great questions and to learn to find the resources needed to answer these questions. Culturally, we would like to see our students develop a special relationship with their environment, including respect for our natural resources such as water.

Two things come to mind when we think about what our students gain through the Coastal Stewardship experience. First, they come away from the beach visits with a sense of “recording quantifiable data.” On one trip, for example, students found “… a fish, silver and black, about three inches long ….” Second, they gain a sense of just how extensively we humans have polluted the earth. Another student notation read, “… we even found trash in the tide pool….” A sad reality, yes, but it can also be an opportunity for them to make some positive decisions about how they treat their world.

The students’ efforts and the Coastal Stewardship Program received statewide recognition in May when Brookwood was named a recipient of a 2012 Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Energy and Environmental Education (SAGEE) from Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Richard Sullivan.

The kids have embraced the effort, truly becoming stewards of this beach.

They take their scientific work—all the measurements and readings—very seriously, and they know the information they give to SSCW really matters. The students care about the health and sustainability of our local watershed and coastline

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(Clockwise from top left): Dr. Henry Oettinger and students measure erosion at Black Cove in Manchester; Dr. Oettinger reviews data with a student; Sven Holch and a group of the fifth grade students collecting environmental data for Salem Sound Coastwatch

and have become conscientious caretakers of this small part of their world.

In the coming months, we’re looking to expand the Coastal Stewardship program in new and exciting ways including a comparison of marine animals and plants found at Black Cove with those found around Deep Creek Middle School, in Eleuthra, Bahamas, a school with which we have developed a partnership.

We are working with faculty from Deep Creek Middle School to link marine biology curricula, and plans are

underway for collecting and sharing data related to marine biology and ecology of the oceans. By combining forces as citizen scientists, students at both schools will broaden and deepen their knowledge and awareness of the problem.

This relationship will expand in April as Deep Creek students come to Brookwood for a week of homestays and shared academic and social activities. We look forward to meeting our partners in person and sharing all we have learned. \ 31

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Partner School and Organization: Jane Edwards School, Edisto Island, South Carolina and Monarch Watch

Kindergarten teachers Pam Maryanski and Katie Alexander aim to instill problem solving, scientific discovery and collaboration through their Monarch Butterfly Project.

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Small Creatures Teaching Big Lessons

By Katie Alexander and Pam Maryanski, Kindergarten Teachers

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n the fall of 2011, we took a traditional idea—the study of butterflies—and developed an innovative project that taught our 31 students not only factual information about butterflies (insect body parts, development, migration, food and habitats) but also instilled important lessons in creative problem solving, scientific discovery and collaboration.

Throughout the project we have partnered with an elementary school, the Jane Edwards School, on Edisto Island, South Carolina, and worked with the scientists of Monarch Watch, a national cooperative network of students, teachers, volunteers and researchers dedicated to the study of the Monarch butterfly.

Like all young learners, Kindergartners are focused on their classroom community, and in order to grasp a big concept—in this instance, butterfly migration—success depends on meaningful and authentic student connections and hands-on learning. This study was full of that and more.

Our students raised butterflies from eggs laid on milkweed leaves and shared with each other their observations as they watched the eggs turn to caterpillars, then chrysalises, and finally butterflies. While they watched them grow, they learned about the butterfly’s needs for survival from a variety of sources—books, the Internet, direct observation, and, of course, through conversations with the Jane Edwards classrooms.

All along, the students collected data and shared it with scientists through the Monarch Watch organization (www. monarchwatch.org). And they compared notes on what they had learned and observed with the South Carolina students via Skype conversations and letters.

Once the butterflies matured, our students tagged their butterflies, released them, and, via the Monarch Watch website, were able to watch migration patterns on the web.

After the release, our children expressed their hopes and dreams for the butterflies and reflected on what they could do about the dwindling monarch butterfly population. Replies included, “Let them go together so they don’t get lonely,” “Give them a note that says ‘fly faster’ so they get to Mexico before it gets cold here,” and “We can let them go near a flowery place because they might be hungry.”

As we followed our students’ interests and inspirations, we worked hard to keep pace, ask questions and provide experiences that allowed them to make meaning out of what we were doing.

We could hardly have expected that our students’ love for our butterflies would lead us to the wood shop to create milkweed planters out of wood scraps and glue (lots of glue!), but it did! Our milkweed planters, dazzlingly decorated and full of seedlings, were on display at the 2011 Sustainability Fair and helped educate

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visitors about the declining milkweed supply worldwide.

Explaining about how heavily butterflies depend upon milkweed for survival, students sold milkweed seeds and encouraged fairgoers to plant them at home.

Our students also sent seed packets to the Jane Edwards School. Those students replied and taught us that monarchs in South Carolina also enjoy the nectar from marigold flowers. With this information came marigold seeds, which we planted in the spring in the Lower School garden near our milkweed.

This year our work continues and expands with weekly communications through which Brookwood and Jane

Edwards students take turns posting information, and sharing photos and videos of the butterfly studies. Our friends at Jane Edwards are raising painted lady butterflies at the moment, and we are once again raising monarchs, so students at both schools enjoy learning about the different types of butterflies.

As much as we work to create routines and predictability in our Kindergarten classrooms, we welcome those “bends in the road” that take us to places we don’t always expect.

As we look back on our study of Monarch butterflies over the past two years, we are happy to see how the project has led us to so many unexpected and wonderful places.

(Clockwise from top left): Kindergartners get ready to release a butterfly; a tagged Monarch in a Brookwood garden; students observe young caterpillars on a milkweed plant; Kindergartners observe chrysalises inside their classroom

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Partner Organization: Wellspring House, Gloucester, MA

Life Lessons Close to Home

By Pam Hawes, Teacher Training Program Director, Grade 1 Teacher (1995-2011) and Suzy Light, Grade 2 Teacher

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Second grade teacher Suzy Light (right) continues the work with Wellspring that began when Pam Hawes was a first grade classroom teacher.

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rookwood’s connection to Wellspring House dates back to December 1995 when then-parent Leslee Shlopak asked if we would be interested in having the first grade class provide small “stocking type gifts” for the children currently living in shelter at Wellspring House. We saw this as a great learning opportunity as well as the chance to involve Brookwood students in making a difference in the lives of children in their own community.

As the years progressed so did Brookwood’s involvement with Wellspring. Education about homelessness and poverty was woven into our Social Studies curriculum. We worked to alter stereotypes and help students understand how and why families become homeless and need help.

Representatives came to speak to Brookwood’s first grade classrooms and spoke to the children about how organizations like Wellspring and Cape Anne Family Services help families in communities.

Central to Wellspring’s mission is the notion of “providing a hand up instead of a hand out,” and we at Brookwood worked hard to incorporate that philosophy into our teaching about and projects with Wellspring. From gathering donated items for Leaving Baskets (baskets of home goods and supplies that are given to families when they move out of shelter and into permanent housing) to organizing Thanksgiving meals for Cape Ann families, students take ownership of the work they do. We have students sign a “contract,” agreeing to help “purchase and procure” an item. They might do this by taking on extra chores, giving up allowance, or going without dessert in order to “earn” the needed funds, which they then use to select and purchase their donation.

Through this, young students learn that they can make a difference. They also learn how hard families work to take care of their children and that there are many families who struggle to put food on the table and pay the bills. One Brookwood student asked if a family would have windows in their new home and then chose to donate bird feeders and bird food, so that the family would have something beautiful to look at. What a demonstration of how deeply our children understand the importance of home.

Over time, work and dialogue with Wellspring has expanded to Grade 2 as students, who worked with Wellspring in Grade 1, and teachers asked, “What could we do next?” A child “do-able” answer—donate Welcome Boxes filled with inexpensive toys and “kid essentials” geared towards toddlers to older children— was quickly discovered.

Our students create and assemble these boxes from start to finish. With their buddies, second graders design, stuff and sew little felt hearts or stuffed animals that are a “gift from the heart” to include in the box. Then they decorate the boxes and write a letter that begins “Dear Friend…” and shares interests, such as sports and hobbies, the Brookwood student might have in common with the recipient

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of the Welcome Box. The end results are heart-felt. They are kid-made.

In the spring, second and sixth graders together decorate pillowcases for children at Wellspring. Because pillows are always sent with the families when they move to housing, Wellspring is always in need of pillows. In addition to the one-of-a-kind pillowcases, Brookwood donates 20 pillows.

Suzy: “It’s impossible for our second graders to fully understand the complexities of homelessness, but an ongoing dialogue with Wellspring helps them appreciate more and think about what realistic part they could play in making others’ lives better. Writing the letters that are put in the Welcome Boxes is a valuable exercise. Once

students start writing, they easily imagine all of the common interests they might share with another child of the same age, someone they’ve never met, regardless of the background experience.”

Pam: “While working with a group of students to create pamphlets for a Brookwood Sustainability Fair, I listened as they talked about what Wellspring does and why.

When one decided to make watering cans for the Sustainability Fair and donate whatever money she raised to Wellspring, it showed that she understood that she could take action and make a difference. Helping our students to see themselves in the world and to find ways to make a difference and to affect change—this is what this work is all about.”

(Clockwise from top left): Second graders with their Welcome Boxes; a first grader plants bulbs in the Wellspring garden; students pack up Welcome Boxes for delivery to Wellspring children

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Partner Organization and Program: Experiencias Interculturales, Guatemalan Student Exchange

World Language Coordinator Carrie Woodruff welcomes Brookwood’s first exchange student, Quechi, who comes from Guatemala City.

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Sharing Language, Culture, and Knowledge

By Carrie Woodruff, Grades 1-8 Spanish Teacher, Word Language Coordinator

O

n October 21, 2012, Brookwood proudly welcomed Luis Eduardo, a 12-year-old student from Guatemala City, Guatemala, to our school community. Luis, who goes by the nickname Quechi, is Brookwood’s first-ever exchange student and comes to us from the Instituto Austriaco Guatemalteco via an organization called Experiencias Interculturales.

Experiencias Interculturales works with Guatemalan students ages 12 to 17 seeking a school exchange experience in the United States. The children sign-on for an eight-week stay in the U.S. from October through mid-December, which is their summer vacation time. Most are proficient in English and study a third language like German or French and attend private schools in Guatemala.

At Brookwood, Luis shares the same schedule with all other seventh graders and does the same work. During his time at our school, he’ll teach a class as well as give presentations about Guatemalan culture, music, history, etc. to various classes and grades. When he returns to his country, he will give a presentation to his own school about Brookwood and his time here.

In order to fully experience American life and culture, students participating in the Experiencias Interculturales programs stay with host families during their time in the States. There were approximately eight Brookwood families that expressed interest in hosting Luis during his stay, and priority was given to those families with a seventh grader studying Spanish. Names were drawn from a hat, and the Rucker Family is the very happy host of our guest.

One of our hopes we have for this program is that Luis’s visit will alter stereotypes and preconceptions people may have of Guatemala and other Latin American countries. We also look forward to Brookwood students discovering just how many common interests (music, fashion, sports, etc.) they share with child their age from a country nearly 2,200 miles away. In addition, the focus on Luis and Guatemala will offer Brookwood students who were adopted from Guatemala a great opportunity to connect to their heritage.

As a World Language teacher, I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for Brookwood students as well as for Luis as they learn the similarities and differences they have with someone their own age from another country and culture. And significantly Brookwood students and Luis Eduardo are experiencing first-hand the benefits of learning another language and using their language skills in an authentic manner. In the future, there may be an opportunity for Brookwood students to travel to Guatemala, which would be exciting.

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(Clockwise from top left): Quechi and Brookwood classmates during morning recess; World Language Coordinator Carrie Woodruff reviews the day’s schedule with Quechi; Quechi stuffs the homemade pinata with candy; fourth graders and Quechi with their pinata; Quechi explores local sites including a favorite beach spot with the Woodruff Family

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