Victoria Wells, proud to be preparing students and teachers for a science education transformation.
Name: Victoria Wells
Role: Middle school science teacher
District: The Kalama School District in Kalama, Washington, has one middle school with 246 students. The district schools are Title I schools with roughly 41% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch programs.
Challenge: Victoria Wells was an original field tester of the OpenSciEd middle school curriculum. It was such a success she knew she needed to find a way to continue using OpenSciEd until it could be formally adopted by the district.
Solution: The Carolina Certified Version of OpenSciEd.
Results: Students are enjoying and excelling in science like never before. Teachers have enhanced OpenSciEd resources that help them guide students through the units. The district is looking forward to more OpenSciEd when the high school and elementary curricula are released.
Kalama, Washington is nestled along the Columbia River in the southwestern region of the state. The rural Kalama School District has two middle school science teachers, including veteran teacher Victoria Wells. Wells’ teaching experience is robust and includes 30 years teaching elementary school, one year teaching 9th grade science, and her most recent seven years teaching middle school science. Wells’ interest in inquiry-based science education began in the 1990s. Captivated by the approach, her teaching career was set on a trajectory toward inquiry-based science teaching. In 2018, Wells had the opportunity to immerse herself in it.
Challenge
OpenSciEd asked Ms. Wells to field test the middle school science curriculum they were developing. For three years, Wells tested two OpenSciEd units per year for grades 6, 7, and 8. She found the new curriculum to have a “markedly different teaching paradigm and philosophy” that really grabbed and kept students’ attention. During the field test period Wells also began facilitating teacher training for OpenSciEd.
As the field tests began to wrap up, Wells willingly took on a new challenge – find a way to continue using OpenSciEd in Kalama’s middle school science classes. This was a challenge because the district was searching for a new superintendent, and the interim superintendent had put new adoptions on hold until the position was filled.
Solution
Ms. Wells created lesson schedules that integrated OpenSciEd alongside existing NGSS-aligned components provided by the regional Educational Services District and some she had created. She also identified science budget funds that could be used to purchase lab kits and other hands-on materials.
Fast forwarding to today, Wells continues to provide impactful science learning for Kalama students. She is now taking advantage of Carolina OpenSciEd-certified resources such as the teacher’s guide, student guides, lab kits, Carolina Science Online, and more. Wells is very happy with Carolinas Certified version of the OpenSciEd instructional materials. As she puts it, “Carolina used their instructional materials expertise to enhance the OpenSciEd materials; for example, making the Teacher Guide easier to follow and use.” She also sees improvements in the lab kit equipment and materials, appropriate video aids, and excellent organization of all the Carolina OpenSciEd materials.
Carolina’s Certified Version of OpenSciEd for Middle School earns an ALL-GREEN Rating from EdReports.
Results
Ms. Wells has witnessed some amazing things happening for her middle school students since her early days field testing OpenSciEd. “Students are making connections among units and coming to understand that science is connected to the real world,” says Wells.
She also finds ways to tailor the lessons to her students, location, and events. For example, she appreciated that she could use the earth and space unit during the April 2024 solar eclipse to help students learn from an in-person phenomenon. Students also got to share what they learned with their families and make connections with the experiences of indigenous peoples and cultures.
During the field test years, the high school English and Science teachers told Wells, “It’s incredible how the kids you taught come to our classes able to have conversations with us, think about things, and identify evidence of how things are connected.” That is the power of OpenSciEd to transform student learning and thinking skills!
This is attested to by students as well. One former middle school student (now in high school) told Wells that the OpenSciEd lessons were so much more interesting, and he got more out of them, compared to the current high school lecture-based curriculum.
Ms. Wells, students, and the rest of the district are looking forward to the release of OpenSciEd curricula for high school and elementary school. Both are under development with an anticipated high school release in 2024 and elementary release date in 2026.
The future looks bright and science-filled for the Kalama School District, thanks to Carolina and OpenSciEd!
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