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Davis Journal

Discovery Education offers teachers and students rich science resources

Oct 03, 2022 10:06AM ● By Becky Ginos

FARMINGTON—Students in the Davis School District will now have access to a suite of science content through the Discovery Education Science Techbook series that was selected by the district for classroom use in grades 7-12. The program provides rich science resources through the use of digital tools that offer teachers a new and exciting way to introduce students to science.

“Every 10 years we have to review our science material,” said DSD Director of Teaching and Learning Belinda Kuck. “The license expired in 2022, so we started looking for new resources for teachers and students a year ago. We surveyed parents and teachers and had a focus group about what we needed in a new product.”

The district wrote an RFP and had several submissions, she said. “There were two rounds. We went through the first round and chose five vendors to take to round two. The committee wanted to see a demonstration and the Discovery product was the winner.”

It teaches core sciences integrated in seventh to eighth grade curriculum in earth science, biology, chemistry and physics, said Kuck. “We implemented it with teachers in August so that it would be ready to go for teachers and students on the first day of school.”

The core content of science, biology and earth science gives students a deep, robust resource of content knowledge, she said. “They can look at science and engineering practices and apply it and learn what a scientist or engineer does.”

This tool supports teachers in learning the aspects of the three dimensions mission in STEM, said Kuck. “Those are to create wonder, implement a sense of the world around us and strengthen their problem solving muscle.”

It’s hard to always find material to use, she said. “This has lots of examples of scientific phenomena, labs, demonstrations and models to help students make sense of the phenomena.”

It is task and demonstration based, said Kuck. “It’s not just rote memorization. Students gain the skills and knowledge they need to get to the problem.”

The digital product is delivered through the Clever portal, she said. “It is authenticated by our online learning. Teachers and students are assigned a course number that shows this course product goes to this course. Students access it through Canvas.”

It’s been great, said Kuck. “We haven’t had any technical difficulties that weren’t human error. Learning how to use new teacher resources such as videos, models and demonstrations take some time. Every week it’s increasing. We’re going to get there.”

Implementing new resources takes a lot of work, she said. “But we have rock star teachers. We had a show and tell at training and a teacher at a junior high blew everyone away with what she’d created. It got everyone excited about how they’re using it.”

The experts are the teachers, said Kuck. “We want to leverage their expertise and knowledge. The best is when they work together and they share.”

Discovery Education has been great to work with, she said. “They have a fantastic team. It’s truly a partnership. They make sure the needs of students and teachers are being met. That’s the best kind of partnership to have. We feel great about our choice.” λ