Discovery Charter School
Learn Green, Live Green

Discovery Charter School Mission

The Discovery Charter School will foster in its students the passion and curiosity necessary for lifelong learning. Students will develop the ability to think critically, communicate effectively and excel academically. Through an integrated, place-based curriculum, our students will become stewards of their environment and community.

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Contact us at discoverycharterschool@gmail.com

The charter was granted!

 

Click here to see the letter from President Gora, Ball State University.

 

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Discovery Charter School Mission

The Discovery Charter School will foster in its students the passion and curiosity necessary for lifelong learning. Students will develop the ability to think critically, communicate effectively and excel academically. Through an integrated, place-based curriculum, our students will become stewards of their environment and community.

kids in grass

 

To accomplish this mission, the Discovery Charter School will:

  • utilize a standards-based integrated environmental curriculum. The school will use the
    local community and environment to teach concepts across all areas of the curriculum,
    including math, science, language arts and social studies.
  • emphasize hands-on, real world approaches to increase motivation, relevance and
    achievement for our students as well as foster their natural curiosity in the world around
    them.
  • utilize inquiry and place-based learning as a core process to develop critical thinking
    and facilitate and demonstrate learning.
  • emphasize teaching how to think, not what to think, in order to foster life-long learning.
  • provide a well-rounded curriculum that includes the arts, humanities and technology,
    while emphasizing the interrelation of all subjects in the students’ community.
  • maintain a strong emphasis on the outdoors to foster an awareness of, and love for, the
    natural environment and an understanding of our impact on that environment. The
    school will engage children in creating and implementing conservation practices in their
    classrooms, throughout the school and in their homes.
  • preserve in students a sense of attachment to their surroundings in order to develop
    active, productive community citizens who recognize their role and responsibility to
    themselves, their neighbors, and the world.
  • integrate the Indiana state standards into its Core Knowledge based curriculum to
    ensure academic excellence. ISTEP and NWEA testing will be used to monitor student
    achievement.
  • develop partnerships with local and regional environmental science resources such as
    the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center, the Indiana Dunes National
    Lakeshore, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Chicago Wilderness and many
    others, to build stronger working relationships among educators, parents and other
    community members.

The following excerpts from “Classrooms are Going Green: How Science Class can Reconnect Kids with Nature,” by Samantha Cleaver, published in the Jan. ‘08 issue of Scholastic Administrator, sums it up nicely:

Across the country, environmental education schools and the growing movement to get kids outdoors are challenging the current ‘indoor generation’. Even as No Child Left Behind decreases the time allotted for environmental education and field trips, research shows that children who spend time outdoors are healthier, happier, and smarter. With the global warming crisis looming, children who spend time outdoors may also be the ones who help save the planet. Getting outdoors also improves test scores. According to a recent study released by the California Department of Education, children who learned in outdoor classrooms increased their science test scores by 27 percent. The gains also extend to reading and math. ‘If you use the environment as an integrating theme across thex curriculum,’ says Brian Day, executive director of the North American Association for Environmental Education, ‘test scores go way up.’ It’s reading about the environment and then exploring it that makes a difference. ‘It’s not merely the act of going outdoors,’ says Day, ‘but if you tie it back to the curriculum in an applied way, then things start to happen.

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