Projects for Greater Learning

Gerald ScrivensTitusville Junior Highy TitusvillOf Pennsylvania

Student projects in the general science classes of the TitusvilleJunior High School have proved to be very beneficial. The use of pro-jects has broadened the scope of the course and given the student achance to express himself in a way not ordinarily done in the class-room.The project method of teaching is certainly not new. Learning by

doing�the Dewey philosophy�has been practiced by teachers formany years. The ideas and methods used in project learning have andwill continue to change. A project should be defined here as an ^in-dividual effort of the student.77 This may be in the form of a researchreport, model making, collections, or statistical analysis of somescientific endeavor.

I have been using the project method for the past ten years. Beingan agriculture education graduate, perhaps projects were well instilledin me while teaching farm boys. The carryover from agriculture togeneral science was both easy and practical, however, and I believethat any teacher in any science subject field will find it easy to createmotivation and interest in projects.

Certainly, general science, because of its wide range of subject mat-ter, lends itself beautifully to student projects. Because of its everwidening scope, i.e., new developments in research, inventions andouter space, general science becomes increasingly more difficult toteach. The reason for this is quite evident�the year does not getlonger, but the subject matter does.

Certain facts, demonstrations and experiments must be taught to aclass group by the teacher. However, there are a great many oppor-tunities for the student to do creative individual work outside ofregular class work. The following procedure is one which I find verysuccessful in the Titusville Junior High School.We have an average enrollment of 180 students in ninth grade

general science, about 30 per class�six times a day. With only oneteacher for this large group, individual instruction is almost nil.

I use one class period in the beginning of each six weeks to explainthe area in which I wish the student to do a project. For instance, thesecond day of school in September I described the procedure for mak-ing a student herbarium. I gave the student his choice of one of threecatagories: cultivated flowers, wild herbaceous plants, and trees andshrubs. I then explained methods of collecting, drying, and mounting.I also mandated a minimum of 30 specimens. The rest was up to the

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student. A deadline, approximately one week before report cardscame out, was set when projects had to be turned in to me. The resultsof such a project were fabulous. From this project the student learnedproper methods of collecting scientific specimens, preparing and pre-serving them, and properly marking and identifying each specimen.The second six-weeks project was similiar to the first. However, this

collection was left to the students choice, as long as it was in theinterest of science. Projects turned in consisted of wood samples, rocksand minerals, bark from trees, bird skins, insects and many others toonumerous to mention. From the second six weeks work I could learn ifthe student understood what makes a scientific collection, that is, wasit identified? Were there adequate specimens enough to call a collec-tion? Did the student understand the accurate and orderly arrange-ment so necessary in science? The results showed that most of mystudents did acquire this knowledge.The third six-weeks project will be in the field of electricity�building

motors, telegraph keys, generators, wiring lamps, etc. In the fourth,fifth, and sixth six-weeks^ projects we will cover the fields of astron-omy and space travel, nutrition and health, and home improvement.The above projects are all outside of class work. In fact, such learn-

ing procedures would be very difficult to put across in the class room.These projects have instilled in my students a kind of scientific curi-osity that they otherwise would not have acquired.

I advocate these outside projects very strongly in any course wherethe teacher finds that his time is at a premium. I also believe that,at the junior high school level, projects such as the ones describedabove are a necessary part of the junior high school students curricu-lum. They help to give him a sense of accomplishment and pride insomething which he has done. If for no other reason it will at leastdraw him away from the television set for a few hours.

URGE SPACE PROBE TO TEST FOR POSSIBLE MARTIAN LIFEA space probe passing within some 600,000 miles of Mars might show if life

exists on the planet.The probe could scan Mars, sending back to earth information about the

spectra in the three to seven micron region, two California Institute of Technol-ogy scientists reported to the first International Space Science Symposium here.The spectra would be correlated with the visual light and dark areas of Mars.Even if not more than a few thousand "bits" of information were transmitted

to earth, the experiment would be "significant."This is because the earth’s atmosphere blocks most of the infrared light in the

spectrum band between one and 100 microns. Some breaks in this atmosphericblock have already permitted detection of what may be carbon-hydrogen bondmolecules on Mars, indicating the existence of organic life.