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Cleveland schools partner with museums, the zoo and others to strengthen science education
It's time to touch the live snake.
Second-graders from Charles A. Mooney School in Cleveland swiftly queue up to Nancy Howell, a Cleveland Museum of Natural History educator whose arms are intertwined with the 6-foot specimen.
Taking turns, students stroke and lightly poke the black rat snake's brown, leathery skin. One clasps the animal's circumference, as if searching for a pulse.
They are exploring, like countless other students before them.
But this is no ordinary field trip. There's a full school day of activity to come at the museum, including a chance to hold real dinosaur teeth and bones, learn about extinction and identify carnivores from herbivores.
They'll also have follow-up lessons with their teachers and a day to bring their families back to the museum to show what they learned.
It's all part of Inspire, a program its creators call a living, breathing attempt to get Cleveland School District children so interested and so accomplished in science that they'll start beating a path of employment to places such as Cleveland Clinic.
Statistically doubtful?
Second-graders from Charles A. Mooney School in Cleveland swiftly queue up to Nancy Howell, a Cleveland Museum of Natural History educator whose arms are intertwined with the 6-foot specimen.
Taking turns, students stroke and lightly poke the black rat snake's brown, leathery skin. One clasps the animal's circumference, as if searching for a pulse.
They are exploring, like countless other students before them.
But this is no ordinary field trip. There's a full school day of activity to come at the museum, including a chance to hold real dinosaur teeth and bones, learn about extinction and identify carnivores from herbivores.
They'll also have follow-up lessons with their teachers and a day to bring their families back to the museum to show what they learned.
It's all part of Inspire, a program its creators call a living, breathing attempt to get Cleveland School District children so interested and so accomplished in science that they'll start beating a path of employment to places such as Cleveland Clinic.
Statistically doubtful?
It might seem that way. Only one-third of Cleveland students pass their science proficiency exams. Nationally, the United States ranks 48th among nations in science education, behind some Third World countries.
