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closeTuesday, Jun. 23, 2009
Ki-Be schools emphasize science with LASER kits
By Drew Foster, Herald staff writer
BENTON CITY -- Kiona-Benton City School District is putting its science curriculum in students' hands in an effort to raise sagging test scores.
The district is investing in Washington State Leadership Assistance for Science Education Reform, or LASER, kits, which offer a hands-on approach to experiments, observation and study.
The kits also require students to keep a journal, thus meshing science and writing.
"It's going to make learning easier because it's hands-on," said Joni Ashley, a fifth-grade teacher at Kiona-Benton City Elementary. She said many elementary science classes revolve around reading instead of tangible, hands-on material.
Ashley is among a group of district teachers and administrators attending a six-day conference on state science standards and science education at the Strategic Planning Institute in Vancouver, Wash. The conference began Monday and ends Saturday, when each participating district should complete a five-year plan for science education.
Ki-Be's plan will include the use of LASER kits in all grade levels. Currently, they are being used only in middle school, but have shown promise there.
District officials hope the kits will better inspire students during science classes and lead to higher proficiency results on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning test.
In the 2007-08 school year, 12.5 percent of the district's fifth-graders, 40.5 percent of eighth-graders and 24.4 percent of 10th-graders tested proficient in science.
That compared with state averages of 43 percent of fifth-graders, 48.2 percent of eighth-graders and 40 percent of 10th graders.
"Our student achievement scores in science reflect that we need to do something different," said Joe Lloyd, district grant manager.
Lloyd estimated the LASER kits will cost about $10,000 annually. The majority of that cost comes from refurbishing the kits with new materials students will use during experiments and other exercises.
The alternative would be to overhaul the district's entire science curriculum by purchasing new books and lesson plans, which would cost about $100,000, Lloyd said.
"We hope to start putting some of the kits in the classroom this year," he said.
Jennifer Behrends, dean of students at the district's elementary level, expects the kits to have a positive impact.
"I think it will make (students) more critical thinkers, which in turn will help them on the WASL," she said.
Ashley, who taught middle school and high school science before moving to a fifth-grade classroom, pointed to the middle-schoolers' WASL results as an indicator of the kits' effectiveness.
"If you look at the eighth-graders, (their test scores) actually went up because they used the kit," she said.
The number of eighth-graders proficient in science increased by about 10 percent between 2005-06 and 2007-08. The 10th-grade numbers saw a similar jump, while the number of proficient fifth-graders rose in 2006-07 but dropped in 2007-08.
Behrends and Lloyd said the state recently modified its science standards by shifting the WASL's emphasis to the scientific process from a more content-focused, specific-answer test.
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