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The team – consisting of Sara Oremland, school librarian, Darren McNally, environmental science teacher, Corinne Berletti, history teacher, and Jessica Park, English teacher – works with junior and senior high school students participating in the school’s Environmental Design, Sciences, Engineering, and Technology (EDSET) academy.

Working together, the team created grade-specific research projects complementing the environmentally-related internship required of students participating in the EDSET academy. Both projects began with students developing an Essential Question that allowed the students’ natural curiosity to guide the research process and led students to interesting discoveries. In answering the question, students learned to find and evaluate information, synthesize that information and properly cite sources. Students also gained experience in using online project management tools and communicating effectively as they presented their research findings and methodologies in either a poster session or podcast.

Junior-level students worked with Berletti, McNally and Oremland on developing an Essential Question, and in some cases the questions were designed to solve a specific problem their internship faced. One EDSET junior worked to create a recycling program at a local elementary school. Using academic research and an original experiment, the student was able to identify “What is the most effective method to encourage elementary students to recycle correctly?” and apply her conclusions back to her internship. During the research process, the educator team used online resources such as Google Docs and Noodle Tools to collaboratively guide students through the evaluation and citing of information. The junior project culminated with a poster presentation modeled after graduate-level conferences.

Berletti, Oremland and Park guided senior-level students through a research project designed to expand on the previous year’s poster session. Students used information gained through a combination of interviews, surveys and research to create a podcast in the style of NPR’s science show RadioLab. The students’ goal was to present their research and internship interviews in an engaging way and to explain a complex environmental issue so that an uninformed person could easily understand. To develop their podcasts, students used story boards to write a compelling narration based on their research. The students then recorded their narrative using Aviary, a free Web-based audio recording and editing program, and completed podcasts were shared with other students.