ENMU students host family night for local children
By: Ryan Jackson
Issue date: 10/21/08 Section: News
Environmental issues often dominate public discussions in the adult world, but the Eastern New Mexico University students in the ELED 412 course decided to use last Tuesday's annual Math and Science Night to teach local third graders about environmentalism.
Jerry Everhart, who is an ENMU professor and an organizer of the program, said the Eastern students have been putting on family nights at James Elementary since 1995.
Originally, the program was designed to connect and involve parents, the schools and the community with the student's education. The environmental aspect is just the most recent in a long line of topics that have included space and oceans.
The Eastern students set up five stations around the gym for the third-graders to visit, learn about the subject and then participate in a relevant activity to help connect the subject with their everyday life.
The stations covered food webs, irrigation, rainforests, water purification and recycling.
At the food-web station students learned about how plants are eaten by animals who are also eaten by other animals, then the animals die and their bodies decompose providing food for scavengers and then eventually become plants again to start the whole cycle over.
From the food web station students then moved to the irrigation station where they learned about different forms of irrigation, and especially focused on irrigation in a desert environment.
The students then had to build an irrigation system that transported water across a small pan of sand to a flower using everyday items.
The rainforest station was the next stop. This station's lesson was about the creatures of the rainforest, the divisions of a rainforest, and the habitats importance.
The students were then quizzed on where certain animals dwelled within the rainforest's many levels. The students were then given a coloring book and pictures of the rain forest.
The water purification station provided the children with runoff water from Portales' streets that day and various materials - from coffee filters to cotton balls - in which to strain the water.
Jerry Everhart, who is an ENMU professor and an organizer of the program, said the Eastern students have been putting on family nights at James Elementary since 1995.
Originally, the program was designed to connect and involve parents, the schools and the community with the student's education. The environmental aspect is just the most recent in a long line of topics that have included space and oceans.
The Eastern students set up five stations around the gym for the third-graders to visit, learn about the subject and then participate in a relevant activity to help connect the subject with their everyday life.
The stations covered food webs, irrigation, rainforests, water purification and recycling.
At the food-web station students learned about how plants are eaten by animals who are also eaten by other animals, then the animals die and their bodies decompose providing food for scavengers and then eventually become plants again to start the whole cycle over.
From the food web station students then moved to the irrigation station where they learned about different forms of irrigation, and especially focused on irrigation in a desert environment.
The students then had to build an irrigation system that transported water across a small pan of sand to a flower using everyday items.
The rainforest station was the next stop. This station's lesson was about the creatures of the rainforest, the divisions of a rainforest, and the habitats importance.
The students were then quizzed on where certain animals dwelled within the rainforest's many levels. The students were then given a coloring book and pictures of the rain forest.
The water purification station provided the children with runoff water from Portales' streets that day and various materials - from coffee filters to cotton balls - in which to strain the water.