Starting during the 2024-2025 school year, teachers in the Danville Independent School District have been bringing science materials and curriculum into their classrooms provided through Smithsonian and Carolina Biological on an elementary level, and OpenSciEd on a secondary level. These high-quality educational resources are available through a grant funded by the Kentucky Department of Education.

The grant’s focus is not only to enrich the learning experience for students but also to empower educators to lead and learn from each other, said Chief Academic Officer Suzanne Farmer.

Here’s a look into how the resources are being used in seven different classrooms, with additional photos from more classrooms.

Mary G. Hogsett Primary School

Hogsett Principal Pamela Hambrick said the school has been integrating science with literacy for the last few years, and it continues to do so more intentionally with the new resource.

“Teachers are not only offering hands-on experiences but also helping students connect new concepts with the language and vocabulary they need to engage with the topics through reading and writing later in their learning … We have seen students be able to comprehend texts at higher levels, and communicate their learning through speaking and writing more easily and clearly,” she said.

Hambrick said the team leads, Diana Oliver and Somer New, have become “content experts to support their teams.”

“Their enthusiasm for the new approach to science instruction has been contagious to both staff and students,” she added.

Diana Oliver, 1st Grade Teacher

Oliver has loved seeing the smiles and excitement of her students during science lessons.

Smithsonian provides many learning materials for her science lessons. For example, when students were presented with a problem — a nest could wash away — they got to work making a creation that mimicked an animal part that could help solve the problem.

 

Somer New, Kindergarten Teacher

New said Smithsonian has provided many hands-on materials.

“Some of the lessons we have completed even include live materials such as radish plants and painted-lady caterpillars,” she said.

 

Like with first grade, there are a total of four units.

“So far, students have explored forces and motion, the weather and how to prepare for it, and what plants and animals need to live,” New said. “Our last unit is how to stay cool in the sun.”

During the last unit, students will engineer their own sun shade design using various materials provided by Carolina Biological, New said.

“I am looking forward to seeing what ideas they have to make their shades and watching them test their models using a light and thermometer,” she said. “They will then compare and contrast what they did in class to what engineers do at zoos to make shade in animal exhibits.”

Students work closely with their peers, discuss their ideas and look at how concepts apply to the real world.

“The student engagement in these lessons really keeps them focused and eager to learn,” New said. “The hands-on elements also give students an opportunity to discover a phenomenon for the first time and create models of their learning.”

The feedback for teachers from Carolina Biological has also been helpful, New said.

 

 

 

Kendra Hines, Kindergarten Teacher

Hines said her class’s favorite part of the science learning has been the living things unit.

“Students were able to explain what living things need to survive by experimenting with radish plants and most recently, caterpillars,” she said. “My class was so excited we ‘got a class pet!’”

She said the curriculum hits on many attributes of the Portrait of a Danville Learner.

“They are able to use their resources to become an Empowered Learner, a Creative Problem-Solver by innovation and seeing different perspectives, a Productive Collaborator and Effective Communicator by working and discussing with others,” she said. “They are becoming all of these things without realizing it.”

Hines said the science curriculum has sparked so much excitement that “students ask almost every morning, ‘Are we doing science today?’”

 

“I love how the materials create the real-life, hands-on personal experience for students,” she said. “Using actual water to represent rain, real engineering materials, real radishes, real caterpillars and habitats instead of pictures, reading about them or just watching videos. Students gain in their own personal experience to develop a deeper understanding. Especially for our littles, they can make personal connections with their own background knowledge in the lessons.”

She expanded on the importance of this.

“Our littles do not want to ‘watch’ — they want to ‘do,’” Hines said. “This grant has given our students a chance to be active learners by providing us materials to allow them to do that. Students are not just watching the teacher conduct the experiment; they are actively doing the experiment and gaining that deeper understanding while having fun in the process.”

Edna L. Toliver Intermediate School

Susan Wheeler, 5th Grade Teacher

One unit from 5th grade that stands out to Wheeler has been growing radish plants without soil, introducing students to hydroponics. Another of hers and her students’ favorite units was where students investigated six unknown solids by using their senses, mixing the solids with water and vinegar, and heating them. By observing and comparing the reactions of each solid, students created a Tree Map (a type of Thinking Map) to organize their findings. She said she has been able to effectively integrate Thinking Maps into science units, “further supporting students' comprehension and organization of complex concepts.”

“I have never taught science like this in my 10 years of teaching,” Wheeler said. “I love that I am learning right along with my students. These resources have enriched my science curriculum, allowing students to engage deeply with concepts like matter and reactions.”

 

The grant has transformed the way Wheeler teaches science.

“In the past, lessons were more lecture-based and focused on memorization,” she said. “Now, students are active participants, engaging in experiments and making discoveries themselves. Their understanding of concepts like matter, chemical reactions, and plant growth has deepened significantly. I’ve observed increased curiosity, better problem-solving skills and more collaboration among students.”

She is excited about upcoming units and the hands-on learning they provide, like a lesson where students explore the law of conservation of matter.

Angel Davis, 4th Grade Teacher

A topic Davis’ class has been exploring this year is energy and motion.

“These learning materials enrich our lessons by making abstract scientific concepts more concrete and understandable,” she said.

 

Students have responded with excitement and enthusiasm and love the hands-on elements, she said.

“This grant has absolutely improved both my experience teaching science and the quality of my students' learning,” she said. “They are more engaged, eager to participate and better able to grasp complex concepts through hands-on exploration. It has been incredible to witness their growth in confidence and scientific thinking.”

Kristi Sigola, 3rd Grade Teacher

Sigola’s class has also been learning about motion, applying learning about forces, patterns and engineering to solve a problem.

“Students were engineering a new swing design and answering the following questions: ‘Can magnets be used to start and stop a swing?’ ‘Can magnets change a swing's pattern of motion?’ ‘Will that make a swing more fun?’ Students performed tests and recorded their observations in their science notebooks,” Sigola said.

In the lesson, students constructed models of swings from ring stands, washers and string. They used different types of magnets, electromagnets and wood blocks with hooks.

“An upcoming unit that I am excited to teach is an earth science module about how weather and climate affect our lives,” Sigola said. “I am excited to teach this module because students will be designing and testing an anemometer to test wind speed and make predictions about future weather. I have discovered that students learn best when doing hands-on science. I know that they will enjoy creating and testing their weather instruments. Students will also be able to research, design and create a three-dimensional model of a roof that will reduce the impact of a hurricane on a roof and the building below it.”

Sigola has taught science to 3rd and 4th-grade students at Toliver for the past 20 years.

“In the past, I have been limited when teaching science due to the cost of materials — many of which were consumable — and many of the materials that I needed were hard to find,” Sigola said. “The science lessons that I've taught in the past also were not as rigorous as they are now. Each Smithsonian lesson begins with a phenomenon or a problem which gives students' learning a meaningful purpose. Students formulate testable scientific questions, make predictions and perform investigations in groups using the materials. Students then record their results in their data notebooks, and they communicate their results to the class. I am a much more effective science teacher than I was in the past because the students now have access to high-quality materials and lessons.”

John W. Bate Middle School

Mona MacCormack, 6th Grade Science Teacher

At Bate, educators are receiving their science materials and curriculum through OpenSciEd. What MacCormack appreciates about the resource is that it develops critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. It’s also process-oriented, she said.

“I actually really like it because I think it’s the way of the future for kids to learn,” she said.

Students are asked questions like, “What does this mean?” and “What do you think is going to happen?” This helps them apply their knowledge to different situations.

A lot of emphasis is on collaboration, working together and scientific argumentation, MacCormack said. Classes have scientist circles a couple of times a week. In them, students discuss what they think is going on with certain concepts. One thing MacCormack appreciates about this time is that it teaches students how to disagree with one another and how to manage disagreement.

“It is very learning-community-oriented, so in the classroom it’s really very community-oriented,” she said about the curriculum.

 

Emphasis is on students having a well-rounded education. There is a concept called related phenomena, through which students make connections between what they’re learning and what they see in their everyday lives. They also model different concepts using materials, to make sense of what they have learned.

The curriculum also emphasizes the importance of independent thinking and allowing students to come to conclusions on their own. Sometimes instead of immediately correcting students when they are wrong, students can find their own way to the correct answer through revisiting the issue later in instruction.

“It’s more about engaging curiosity,” MacCormack said.

And sometimes students have come to terms with the unknown, which MacCormack said is also an important thing for students to learn, working through things themselves.

“They have to become familiar and comfortable with not always knowing the answer,” she said.

She enjoys the emphasis on collaborative inquiry, as students plan, reflect and act. This allows them to bring together multiple perspectives to solve a problem and work with a common purpose.

A couple of units MacCormack’s class has been working on are light and matter and thermal energy. For the light and matter unit, OpenSciEd provided boxes, glass, one-way mirrors and other materials. Students studied how light traveled. For the thermal energy unit, students used thermometers, cups, water and scales to study states of matter and particle theory of matter. They looked at how water changes as it evaporates.

Though MacCormack said the OpenSciEd curriculum has required a massive change in how she manages her classroom and students aren’t quite used to it yet, she noted that it encourages depth of learning.