Teachers from Oberlin, Elyria, Wellington, and Lorain met to accept their grants and discuss their projects.
			Local Teachers Awarded Hughes Grants By Mark Graham
	Caitlin Scott, left, talks with teachers about their new grants. PHOTOGRAPHS BY M. LANDAU		DECEMBER 2, 1998--In a small, informal ceremony at the College's Lewis House Monday night, Caitlin Scott, youth-education-programs coordinator at the Center for Service and Learning (CSL), awarded 18 local elementary-school teachers grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Outreach Program. The program, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and coordinated by the CSL, provides grants of varying amounts to elementary-school teachers to develop experiential science projects. The teachers work with Oberlin science majors who have studied science pedagogy. The science majors help develop curricula, lead presentations, and set up experiments with the teachers. Oberlin science faculty, including William Fuchsman, professor of chemistry, Mary Garvin, assistant professor of biology, Kay Knight, mathematics instructor in the Student Academic Affairs Office, and Dan Stinebring, associate professor of physics, also advise the teachers. "The program's two goals are to support innovative science teaching in K-4 public schools and to give college students the opportunity to explore careers in science education," says Scott. "It's a great way to bring science to the children," says Sarah Lee, a first- and second-grade teacher at Oberlin's Eastwood Elementary School, who won a Hughes grant last year. "Having students in the classroom has been a wonderful experience for the kids and for me," she says. Lee's grant will help her develop Eastwood's community garden, which will give first- and second-graders experience with plants and ecology. Other projects--at Cascade Elementary School in Elyria, Meister Road Elementary in Lorain, Eastwood and Prospect elementary schools in Oberlin, and Westwood Elementary in Wellington--will teach students about weather, inventions, photography, plant and animal wildlife, conservation, and astronomy.
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