COAA News college of the atlantic association july 1985 FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK Why did I choose to transfer to that groovy place despite my advisor's skepticism? True, along with First of all, Andy, Lisa, and I would like to thank all leaving behind a pre-med oriented biology of you who responded with such enthusiasm to our department, I was relinquishing some privileges: first newsletter. As we sat in the Wursthaus in exposure to a large faculty with diverse Harvard Square every Tuesday morning from perspectives, interaction with exchange students 7:00-9:00 discussing "the alumni" we began to from other cultures, and the use of the many realize that we needed more information. How do all facilities of 8 well-endowed school. Although there of you want to be involved in the college and how can is much to be said for the benefits of developing we, through the COAA News, help to build a COA intellectually for 8 few years in 8 well-padded community? college I needed to feel my rootlets growing towards a larger root system. I was ready to seek out the For this reason "From Classroom to Career" became "privileges" I needed, rather than finding them just our first topic in the Forum for Discussion. The by stepping outside of the dormitory. In fact, the message that we got back was that most of us are very first challenge I had to meet at COA was that there attached to the college for 8 variety of emotional and was no dormitory to step outside of. intellectual reasons even if we haven't said "human ecology" in many moons. Another common trait is As an educator constantly refining my philosophy and that we are all curious--wanting to know about practices, I find myself facilitating learning things, people, and ideas. experiences for children not unlike those I experienced at COA. Remembering how exciting my Printed below are the responses we received tracing studies became as I made them relevant beyond the this transition that few of us make without a little Ivory Towers, I try to involve students in studies soul-searching, upheaval, and occasional joy. which have application to their community. Recently in 8 science education program with adolescents I've worked with a method called Learning By Real Problems (LBuRP) developed by The Corporate Council for Critical Skills in Milford, New Hampshire. Kids develop group process and critical thinking skills through directing themselves to completion of projects such as: doing 8 woodlot I remember feeling quite small sitting in his inventory and management plan for a local preserve, overstuffed leather chair. As a sophmore at a analysing sludge for 8 local chemical plant, or traditional liberal arts college I had come to speak starting their own organically grown seedlings with the head of the biology department about my business. plans to transfer to COA. He suggested that if I was serious about pursuing a career in ecological My commitment to science education stems from 8 field research I should look into some larger human ecology focus nurtured at COA. With our universities, places "a little less groovy" than COA. society SO committed to technology, it is important that the populace understand the true spirit of science: the development of insight. Through discovery learning in science, a unique relationship between the knowledge and the learner develops connecting the child to the very workings of the universe. COA helped me combine the powers to This newsletter was produced by the Communications inform my curiosities with a sense of potency in Committee of COAA: involvement, and helped instill the belief that it is not too much to ask a science curriculum to provide Andrew Bennett these same learning experiences for children. Lisa Holley Jean McHugh One lesson I learned at COA through exploring the histories of scientific investigations was that ideas With assistance from: use of computers) that are judged to be wrong within 8 current frame of reference may somehow turn out to prove that it is Bruce Friedman the mindset that needs altering. COA challenges IEC, Inc. Solar Design & Contracting assumptions, takes risks and fosters creative problem-solving through 8 commitment to Dorothy Shamonsky innovation. Exposure to the spirit and policies of COA LCS Telegraphics, Inc. as an institution effects my day-to-day interactions with organizations. Edward DeBono, in a book on And helping COA: creative thinking, puts it this way: "It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than Elmer Beal to always be right by having no ideas at all." Sally Crock Marcia Dorr Postcript: It's fall and hawks are migrating. Driving Char lie Hesse through autumn colored mist, I converse with the stuffed barred owl and crow sitting in my passenger Artwork graciously submitted by: seat. I ask them how they would go about comparing Janet Biondi-Parker themselves to hawks for the benefit of 4th graders (ocean mammals) just gaining exposure to the world of birds. The next Dorothy Shamonsky week one boy insisted that during the weekend he'd seen "a whole bunch of peregrine falcons" flying over his uncle's field. Maybe it's not important when, or even if, that boy realizes that he'd related a Note: To anyone with access to an Apple Maclntosh; if perfect description of pigeons in flight. Maybe you want to contribute MacWritings, MacArt, or what's important is that the child was visualizing other MacThings to the newsletter, just do it on your falcons, that he was participating body and soul in the Mac and send us the disk (preferably with a thrill of discovery. I leave his classroom, satisfied self-addressed and stamped envelope for its return). to think that just maybe he'll remember that in 4th It would save us many valuable hours on the grade he was asked to do what was once asked of me: to keyboards. As for those who have qualms about look upward. reading computer print, we are working on the Kass Hogan '81 means to typeset the whole newsletter. Anyone want to donate 8 letter-quality printer in the meantime? 2 COAA NEWS