Why alligators? Alligators are fun and scary, like middle school.

Project Background

At the dinner table when I was a kid, my dad used to tell me what he was doing at work. He was using a cyclotron to shoot protons into other protons. So the salt shaker became the high speed proton, and the pepper mill was the one getting shot at. If the pepper mill - the stationary proton - got hit, it might break into smaller particles - pieces of cracker would fly off of it. Or cherry tomatoes. That was called an event. Sometimes one of the smaller particles would be a piece of anti-matter. If a piece of anti-matter ran into a piece of matter, they would annihilate each other. Dinner was an eventful time, and physics seemed to me one of the most fun and exciting things you could possibly do. When my parents' friends came over, the gossip was about physics experiments, people having babies, the politics of labs, marriages, divorces, and who would get the Nobel Prize.

As an undergraduate, I worked in a cell biology lab. I was a junior member of the group, but I got to attend lab meetings. I saw from another perspective how scientists interact, how they help each other figure out problems, and how the quality of the discussion determines the quality of the science.

After I graduated, I decided I wanted to teach science. My goal was to help students from historically underrepresented groups to gain access to the fields of scientific research and of medicine. The school where I started my teaching, and where I still teach, has a very collaborative science department and a wonderful, engaging, hands-on science curriculum. In spite of all that, in my first few years of teaching, I heard a lot of my students say "I hate science." I didn't hear this from students who, like me, came from families of scientists. But I heard it a lot from students of color, and from other students who, for one reason or another, found the world of science a foreign place.

What was it, I wondered, that had made the world of science such a friendly place to me? I decided it was the sense of personal connection, of community, and of my identity as someone who belonged to that community. The goal of scientists is not to build community, it is, rather, to generate questions and explanations of quality and depth. But my experience growing up, and working in a lab as an undergrad, convinced me that the sense of the community and enjoyment of science are essential parts, prerequisites, to arriving at good questions and good explanations / producing good science.

I began thinking about how to create that feeling for my students. How to make the science classroom a place where they felt at home, felt valued members of the community. A place where the activities of science, i.e., experimentation, discussion, and questioning, are interesting and fun.

My current framework for building this kind of scientific community in the classroom looks like this. I try to build a personal connection with individual students, to foster a sense of community among students, and to offer hands-on experiences that lead to fruitful experiments. I try to "scaffold" individual work and class discussion to encourage creative thinking about science. Below are some examples of strategies, lessons, student work, and reflective conversations between teachers. I encourage you to add to the questions if you would like to; this is a work in progress - an experiment.

Teaching Context

I teach sixth and seventh grade science at Bancroft Middle School in San Leandro. Bancroft is an urban school. The student population is ethnically, linguistically, economically, and academically diverse. The ethnic breakdown of the student population at Bancroft is approximately: 30% Latino and Latina, 30% African American, 30% white, and 10% Asian. Our English language learners make up about 25% of the student population. There are 18 different languages among the students at Bancroft. There are about 950 students at Bancroft, and three grades, sixth, seventh, and eighth.

Information about Bancroft Middle School and San Leandro Unified School District

Additional Issues and Resources

In the menu on the left, you will see the four alligators from the cycle of alligators and more alligators that link to additional issues and resources: Equity, Teacher Community, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s), Guestbook, and Contact Claire. Each one links to a page. Please sign the Guestbook!