Fallon teacher Kerri Angel was so impressed with Nevada First Lady Sandy Miller's commitment to K-12 science education in Nevada that she dedicated her "Science Box Traveling Kit" in Mrs. Miller's honor last spring. Thursday morning Mrs. Miller will meet Ms. Angel in her Churchill County Junior High School classroom and see the box first hand.
The Sandy Miller Science Box is one of 16 that now circulate throughout Nevada's K-12 classrooms as part of a program developed and coordinated through the Desert Research Institute's's Distance Education Office. Dr. Susan Moore, distance education and K-12 coordinator for DRI, said Angel's science box provides students with a hands-on instruction package to teach them about forces, motion and energy.
Other science boxes cover topics ranging from earth history and ecosystems to heredity and chemical reactions, and all the topics are drawn from the draft Nevada State Education Framework which identifies statewide instructional objectives in science.
Moore said the program is primarily funded by the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development Program with additional funding from the Nevada Space Grant Program. New sponsors include the University and Community College System of Nevada Distance Education Office, the Nevada Natural Resources Education Council, and Fuel Cells 2000. Teachers develop concepts for new boxes and assemble them during the summer. New teachers are being recruited to expand the program to a total of 22 traveling kits.
The boxes, which are circulated on a first-come, first-serve reservation system, originally were packaged in 14-inch-square cubes, but now travel like many frequent flyers-- in off-the-shelf roll-on airline luggage.
Bring Hands-On Science Into Nevada's K-12 Classrooms