Focus on TUSD - October 2007

District to Host 250 Science Educators at National Conference
TUSD will host educational science leaders from around the country Oct. 31-Nov. 2 when they gather for The Next Step Science Institute: Advancing Instructional Leadership K-8 Science.

TUSD was selected for this high powered, high quality, professional development conference because the District was ready to showcase its science center, said Marleen Kotelman, the TUSD Regional Science Center coordinator.

This is the first time a Tucson school district has been chosen as a site for this annual conference. The runner-up was a district in Alabama.

Kotelman said TUSD will highlight its science center, which opened in 1993 and expanded to a regional center this year when Sunnyside Unified School District and a couple of private schools joined TUSD.

"In science classes, we're doing more than just read about science," Kotelman explained. "We want to follow research and provide hands-on activities. A science curriculum falls apart because of not having a center that has supplies and maintains them."

The center provides high quality materials and training for every TUSD science classroom. "Supplies like cotton balls and Q-tips usually get used up quickly," Kotelman said. "Without resources, kids learn content, not concept. So many kids need to see it and do it with science concepts."

Participants at the science conference will choose one strand to follow. As the host site, TUSD will offer the traditional "nuts and bolts" strand, which will be Instructional Materials Support.

About 250 participants are expected at the Doubletree Hotel, 445 S. Alvernon Way, whose entire space was reserved 18 months ago. The conference will include a performance by the Tucson High Magnet School mariachis and a reception at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

he Regional Science Center staff also includes Thea Canizo and Kirstin Bittle.

-- By Sharon Dunham
Communications & Media Relations