Trickle Down Education: Taking Graduate Level Work to Sixth Graders

Yesterday, I spent the entire day with 6th graders. It was wonderful.

An alum of our program and a sixth grade science teacher, Anthony Pecora, received his Master’s Degree in 2005 and wanted to try an innovative approach of combining the topics of writing, science and scientific discovery into one activity for his students and he used part of his instructional experience at Bloomsburg to craft the exercise for his students.

As a student in my class, Anthony had to go through an exercise where, as part of a mock company, he had to research an elearning solution and, as part of a team, write a response to the elearning RFP and then present with his group the recommendations contained in their proposal to Bloomsburg’s Corporate Advisory Council.

Anthony has taken that instructional method to the next level and helping sixth graders through the same process. He has crafted the exercise to be appropriate for sixth graders and done it wonderfully.

Anthony Pecora and Karl Kapp help 6th grade students prepare a proposal on erosion control.

He teaches sixth grade science at Southern Columbia in Catawissa. As part of the student’s project he had them respond to a RFP. Yes, sixth grade students responding to an RFP to create a solution to an erosion problem at a local watershed. Brilliant!

You can read about the details of the Erosion Prevention Project here. But basically the students will do field work, experimentation work, view computer simulations, conduct research on erosion and then write a proposal and then present the proposal to erosion experts, school personnel and others. What a great experience for 6th graders. Practical, motivational and “real world.”

He even said that students who are not normally interested in science really have been excited about the project.

My role was to provide information about how to write a proposal (a persuasive essay). So I discussed outlining the proposal, creating an evidence-based argument and providing the right level of detail so the reader can visualize the solution. The students were sharp. They responded well to questions I asked them, the participated in the discussion and they were enthusiastic about the project.

Hats off to Anthony for a great project. I think those 6th graders are going to be ready to go in the “real world” for having gone through this experience. They may even give my graduate students a run for their money.

What I really like is how innovative teachers like Anthony can take graduate school projects and re-craft them to the needs of kids as young as elementary school. It really shows the dedication and the effort that most teachers put into preparing students for the future. What is does is help excite students in the area of science, math, engineering and technology (STEM) which is greatly needed.

Glad to be a small part of this wonderful project…only in 19 years, I am going to have to think of something else to teach as they’ll already know how to write proposals.