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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