2016 Workshop Talk | 1:05:40 | K-6, Science
Summary
What if your science class started with a checklist that ran something like: “Safety goggles … check. Lab book … check. Power tools? Absolutely!” As part of our STEAM initiative at The Covenant Lower School, we have reintroduced the best elements of old school shop class. Rather than jump on the robotics bandwagon or purchase a 3D printer, we have found ways to integrate our history, science, math, language arts, and fine arts classes into one holistic experience, a liberal arts approach that teaches, through the use of real tools, real raw materials, and real craftsmanship, all the fundamentals of science while also inculcating virtue. Come hear about our Cooking STEM and Ancient Technology Projects, two ways in which we are reclaiming the real from the increasingly virtual world of modern STEM pedagogy.
Speaker
Chris Hall earned a BA in philosophy from Gettysburg College and a MAT in elementary education from Towson University. He has been a classroom teacher in elementary, middle, and high schools for the past 20 years, serving as a PK_8 science department chair and as a conceptual physics teacher before serving in his current role as lower school academic dean at The Covenant School in Charlottesville, Virginia. His naturalist pedigree starts far earlier: after spending his childhood roving far and wide through the local streams and fields on his bike at a time when such things were not yet frowned upon by community associations, he earned Eagle Scout, trained in tracking, and has logged more than thirty years as a backpacker and ancestral skills practitioner. He currently lives off the beaten path in central Virginia on a homesteaded microfarm with his wife, Catherine, and three sons.
Additional Materials
The Association of Classical & Christian Schools presents Repairing the Ruins, the ACCS annual conference, copyright ACCS. You may make additional copies of this recording for use by your school but please do not sell any copies of the recording, or post it on the internet.
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