You may be hearing about changes at Rockford Middle School for the 2011-12 school year. Rockford Middle School will become a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Magnet School, with an emphasis on environmental studies.
The Minnesota Department of Education defines magnet schools as “a public school that offers a curricular emphasis or theme that meets all state academic standards.” There are currently 73 magnet schools in Minnesota that offer a variety of themes. More specific information regarding Minnesota Magnet programs can be found on the MDE website.
Rockford Middle School will offer an environmental theme,incorporating subjects of interest in students and instructional methods integrated into those subjects. This intensive, focused study may include working directly with an environmental specialist, directing a student-led project, and incorporating theory into real-world practice.
So what is the connection between STEM and the environment? To quote John Dewey from his book The School and Society:
“Experience [outside the school] has its geographical aspect, its artistic and its literary, its scientific and its historical sides. All studies arise from aspects of the one earth and the one life lived upon it.”
Environmental education focuses on how to live correctly in the world. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University, proposed seven different intelligences in children and adults: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Recently, an eighth was added to the list: naturalist intelligence, or “nature smart”.
Today’s students are digital natives: the use of the internet and gadgets is part of their daily lives. The upshot is, our society may be, in a sense, de-natured, with the Internet and other electronics replacing nature in our lives.
Our mission at Rockford Middle School for the 2011-12 school year will be to “unplug” our students from screens and “plug” them into nature.
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