Westminster College Offers Five Workshops for Teachers

The Westminster College Science in Motion Program offers five workshops for area teachers this summer.  All workshops are held in the Hoyt Science Resources Center from 7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., and offer six Act 48 hours for each day of workshop attendance.

The workshop for elementary teachers is scheduled June 9-11.  This workshop will begin with a full day of "Light, Color and Spectro-scopy for Kids" offered by Dr. Herb Retofsky from the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh.  Other topics included in this workshop include, rockets, simple machines, the solar system, and metric measurement.  Teachers will also have the opportunity to participate in a stream study with the staff of Jennings Environmental Education Center.

Elementary and junior high school teachers may find the hands-on Monarch investigations workshop scheduled Tuesday, June 17.  Leah Spink, coauthor of "My Monarch Investigation," a journal for fourth to eighth grade students, will lead with session.  While the journal is written for fourth to eighth grade students, teachers of all grades who are interested in learning more about Monarchs are welcome.

The biology teacher workshop is scheduled June 11-13.  Biology teachers will participate in a stream study with the staff from Jennings Environmental Education Center, conduct standards-based activities developed by the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative, and attend sessions presented by Westminster College faculty on microscopy and electrophoresis.  Teachers will also have the opportunity to conduct experiments with Palm Handhelds, Vernier LabPros, and Probes.

The chemistry teacher workshop will conduct several inquiry-based activities, and is scheduled June 16-18.  Other sessions include Kinetics, fuel cells in education, nuclear radiation, and electroplating.  Teachers will also conduct experiments with Palm Handhelds, Vernier LabPros, and Probes.

The physics teacher workshop is scheduled June 18-20.  Topics covered included fuel cells in education, nuclear radiation, work and energy, projectile motion, Ohm's law, sound waves, and light intensity.  Many of these experiments will be conducted with Palm Handhelds, Vernier LabPros, and Probes.

All workshops are free for Act 48 credit.  Westminster College also offers graduate credits for the workshops.  To receive credit, an educator must attend five days of summer workshops and two days of fall workshops.  Payment is required for graduate credits.

The deadline for registration is Friday, May 30.  For more information about Science in Motion, visit the web page www.westminster.edu/sim or contact Dr. Kathy Shaffer, acting director of Science in Motion at (724) 946-6295 or e-mail shaffeka@westminster.edu.