Teachers use grants for joint projects

The goal is to show children how light and sound energy affect their lives.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Three area teachers are using three FirstEnergy Corp. "Sound and Light Energy" education grants to offer joint educational programming for more than 250 pupils.
Karen Ferguson, a second-grade teacher at Stadium Drive Elementary, Jeannie Riser, an eighth-grade teacher at Center Middle School, and Terry Franklin, a special education teacher at The Rayen School in Youngstown, all recently secured $500 grants from First Energy to conduct sound and light energy projects.
The three are linking their programs to provide a wider experience for all of their pupils, Ferguson said.
Not just science
Ferguson's project, "Putting Active Learners' Minds to Science," will explore light and sound from a scientific perspective, but will also reach across the curriculum.
Her pupils will be making pinhole cameras to examine light energy and rain tubes, drums and other instruments to describe sounds.
Math comes into play as the pupils do data analysis on their work, while reading and writing are involved in plans to read "The Magic School Bus" and write biographies of important scientists who helped advance the uses of sound and light, Ferguson said.
Even social studies will be part of the project as pupils collect and organize their materials and make maps of areas in the home where lights are present and where sound levels vary.
Riser's eighth-graders will do their own variation of "Stomp," based on the Broadway show of the same name.
They will make instruments out of various items found in their homes and present their work in class.
Franklin's pupils will make their own crude radios that will actually be able to receive signals in her "I Hear Voices" project. The goal is to teach them that sounds are traveling everywhere around them, she said.
Everyone involved
The three groups of pupils will link through a teleconference, videotapes and project demonstrations to trade information on their particular projects under the grant, Franklin said.
Riser said her class versions of "Stomp" will be videotaped and shown to Ferguson's second-graders.
"We will send her what we produce," Riser said.
Ferguson said her pupils will also be doing a light and sound display for the holidays, using what they learned to create a light and sound show featuring singing, noise-making and lights.
The school and parents will be invited to watch the show, and it will be taped for Riser's and Franklin's classes.
All of the children involved in the joint project will explore how light and sound work and the role these energies play in their lives, Ferguson said.
gwin@vindy.com