Cooper Center, UA host citizen science program
A new hands-on science curriculum, co-developed by the University of Arizona and launching in three Southern Arizona high schools this fall, will engage students in citizen science projects to measure air quality at various sites in and around Tucson.
The multi-week Rising Vision curriculum was developed by the Cooper Center for Environmental Learning, a partnership between the UA College of Education and the Tucson Unified School District.
The Rising Vision curriculum — being piloted at Rincon and University high schools, as well as at Sierra Vista’s Center for Academic Success — has high school students measuring air quality at the Cooper Center, at their schools and at other sites in their communities, using sensors that visually detect airborne particulates.
In addition to teaching the fundamentals of science inquiry — from forming a hypothesis through gathering and analyzing data — the program challenges students to explore air quality as a social-justice issue and to share their work and findings in public events in their communities.
Located on Tucson’s west side, the Cooper Center serves as a “living classroom” that thousands of Arizona students visit each year to participate in hands-on, nature-based educational activities.
Three teachers named
as award semifinalists
Three Tucson-area teachers have been named semifinalists for the Arizona Educational Foundation’s Teacher of the Year honor.
The local semifinalists who will be honored in October are:
- Joshua Farr, 10th- through 12th-grade science teacher at Cienega High School in the Vail Unified School District.
- Benjamin Lebovitz, choir and drama teacher at Walden Grove High School in the Sahuarita Unified School District.
- Rachel Lodge, ninth-grade history teacher at Flowing Wells High School in the Flowing Wells Unified School District.
The AEF Arizona Teacher of the Year program spotlights the contributions of outstanding public school teachers throughout Arizona by annually recognizing five ambassador finalists and five semifinalists representing pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade public schools.
3 Marana schools
get behavior award
Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports of Arizona has announced that three schools in the Marana Unified School District have earned the 2018 Silver PBISaz Achievement Award.
The schools, Rattlesnake Ridge Elementary, Twin Peaks Elementary and Marana High School, were recognized for demonstrating high fidelity implementation and improved student behavior from using Positive Behavior Interventions and Support systems.
The district-wide integrated behavior system is the application of positive interventions and system changes to achieve socially important behavior changes.
