The TGS educational program

Founded on the beliefs of community and global responsibility to each other and the earth, The Greenspire School will offer a unique educational program for middle school students based on purposeful connections between humans, communities and the environment that sustains us all. The Greenspire School vision is for students to be immersed in learning through functional understanding and application of biology and chemistry in relation to watersheds and rivers; through development of mathematics and geometry skills in relation to simple machines and building projects that are utilized in agriculture and the community; and through an understanding of the role of humans as stewards of the environment developed through the study of history and civilizations and their corresponding literatures, economic systems, physics, patterns of energy use, environmental impacts and technologies.

THE INDIVIDUAL STUDENT

The Greenspire School’s vision is a program that will appeal to young people who enjoy learning through outdoor education by experiencing meaningful physical connections with materials and/or students who excel in an environment which provides opportunities for both individually paced work and small group learning. The vision is to create and sustain an environment that nurtures focused work, where students have the freedom to independently explore an interest in great depth, where strengths are built on and weak skill areas are identified and practiced - through focused lessons, multiple approaches, and flexible lesson delivery in order to develop mastery by students who represent a variety of individual learning styles.

OUR ENVIRONMENT

The Greenspire School vision includes the implementation of a Place-Based Education (PBE) model, using the local community and environment as a starting point for teaching and learning. PBE emphasizes hands-on, inquiry-based, real-world experiences; and involves direct collaboration with community partners. According to the Great Lakes Water Institute, Place-Based Education produces substantial learning gains through a healthy, supportive school culture; sustainable partnerships between schools and communities; a greater appreciation of the environment; and more frequent and effective acts of stewardship.

At the heart of our vision of a Place-Based Education is the outdoor classroom. Sitting on nearly 500 acres of state and local parklands, The Greenspire School’s students will journey through the woods and along the stream - wandering on foot on clear, sunny days, or in the rain; atop snow on snowshoes; or on bikes. From upland meadows to trout streams and cedar bogs, the diverse natural environment of the Commons and the Grand Traverse area is an ideal classroom. The Greenspire facility was specifically designed as an environmentally sound school, a teaching tool in and of itself. Our vision of the outdoor classroom, then, includes in it the interaction between our facilities and nature. Our facilities currently include a chicken coop and maple syrup shack. As a public charter school, we anticipate student construction of a greenhouse to deepen experiential knowledge of the agricultural curriculum.

 

PARTNERING WITH COMMUNITY

The Greenspire School vision emphasizes the integration of the school into the community. Partnering with the community gives students an enhanced understanding of the world they will enter as they grow while making for a more solid, relevant, and challenging educational experience. To learn the essential skills outlined for a Montessori-like middle school and those required by state benchmark standards, students will work extensively with our community of expert adults: experienced researchers, scientists, farmers, engineers, builders, business people, families and teachers. The wealth of our community experience lies with the land and water. We are fortunate to be home to incredible community organizations whose underlying purposes are to conserve our natural land and water systems. Greenspire’s program is designed to educate the next generation about our lakes and land through observation, research and recording, and communicating these findings to the local and global community. The wisdom of these experts will be woven into the student’s experience through modeled partnerships and constant hands-on teaching. Inspiration for individual and small group investigation will emerge from these direct experiences.

VISION - Optimism, Efficacy, and Responsibility

The Greenspire School vision is to help young members of the community be hopeful and to see vast individual and community-centered possibilities by encouraging them to:

• Respect all things on this earth, whether it is people, animal or plant.

• Honor others' thoughts, wishes, and words.

• Wait and listen rather than interrupt another.

• Build student confidence and self-efficacy so that each student successfully transitions to the high school and tertiary education.

• Building student trust in others through successful collaborative relationships.

• Practice optimism. A negative outlook may reflect in the mind, body, and spirit.

The MISSION of The Greenspire School is to provide an ecologically relevant and academically rigorous program grounded in direct experiences that develop skills to facilitate lifelong learning and nurture ethical citizenship.

In other words, The Greenspire School intends to create a school grounded in committed partnerships that teach students environmental stewardship through experiential, hands-on instruction.

ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENTAL GOALS

Caring for and attending to the self, the environs, and other members of the Greenspire community leads students to care about and act responsibly for themselves, the environment, and the world community. The Greenspire School will provide an environment aimed at the developmental needs of the adolescent and provide opportunities for real world problem solving while maintaining rigorous academic goals and objectives. The broad goals at Greenspire are focused on the process of “becoming.” We aspire for students to: become academically prepared; develop social responsibility; internalize ground rules; cultivate creativity and originality of thought; develop independence and autonomy; foster cooperation; build physical, mental, and emotional strength; and ultimately leave their Greenspire schooling days with confidence in their skills and unlimited potential. These broad goals embody the school vision and will drive the overall direction of student achievement.

GENERAL CURRICULUM

The Greenspire School’s curriculum aligns with Michigan’s Grade Level Curricular Expectations. It has been adapted, in part, from River Crossing Environmental Middle School – an award-winning school in Portage Wisconsin, and the Jane Goodall Environmental Middle School – a nationally recognized school of excellence from Salem Oregon. We have also employed curricular components from The Chittenden Education Center – a nationally recognized Mathematics and Science Center. We have put great time and energy into the curriculum to make it constructivist and project based. Based on various themes, often selected by the student, the student is immersed in a project that encompasses all of the core disciplines. Where applicable, the teacher will reinforce key concepts through either formal or informal individual or group lessons.

Because of the design of our facility and our integration of the “outdoor classroom,” The Greenspire School has a unique ability to offer students a wide variety of real-world projects. Some projects will be teacher driven; for example, all students will participate in a project to identify and quantify the macro invertebrate population of a stream on the school grounds. Other projects will be student driven. In student-driven projects, students take responsibility and perform integrated scientific investigations and studies in certain fields – what we call “occupations” - that are related to school activities. The occupations (i.e. projects) areas that form the core of our school’s curriculum are horticulture, architecture and construction, food science, and inventors’ workshop. In these occupational projects, students do practical work while studying the science, math, and other subject areas related and needed for their work. Students will be supported and guided by the teachers and, whenever possible, knowledgeable community experts.

For example, in the horticulture occupation (i.e. project) students will be responsible for investigating and learning the required knowledge and skills to run an organic garden for their own consumption or for sale at local businesses or farmers’ markets. The students study the integrated field of horticulture that includes biology, chemistry, and earth sciences. They also learn business, project management, and math skills. These occupational projects thereby provide an opportunity for students to learn and apply their knowledge in engaging and real work. Additionally, these projects give students an opportunity to become integral members of the school community as they help to support and administer school activities. As you will see from the examples given below, we have woven environmental science components throughout all of our occupations projects.

 

Examples of Greenspire Occupations / Project Areas:

Horticulture

Students will design, plan, and run an organic garden with study in the following areas:

• Biology: photosynthesis, botany, heredity, plant structure, reproduction, composting (nutrient cycling), integrated pest management, etc.

• Entomology

• Chemistry: Soil chemistry

• Earth Science

• Soils, Weather, Climate

• Mathematics/record keeping

• Greenhouses/Cold Frames

  • Structures, Convection, Conduction, Radiation

• Business/Entrepreneurship

Structures

Students will design and build small structures needed for or to enhance school activates and lessons. Likely structures would include a sugar shack, chicken coop and roost structures, green house, cold frames, wheel barrows, picnic tables, bike racks, wooden bikes, furniture, gym set, and simple machine demonstrations. Some activities could be used as fund raisers, such as the building of Adirondack chairs. Designing and building small structures gives students the opportunity to integrate the study of physical science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Students will have opportunities to study and learn in the following areas:

• Design process

• Engineering, sketching and drawing

• Use of drafting tools and Computer Aided Design Tools (Google SketchUp)

• Mathematics

• Use of hand tools

• Use of basic fastener technology

• Simple machines: levers, inclined planes, wheels, and pulleys

Maple Syrup

Students will run a maple sugaring operation that will provide students an abundant source for inquiry and analysis in the complex processes of collection and evaporations.

Students will have the opportunity to study in the following areas:

• Chemistry/Biology

• Photosynthesis

• Energy

  • Heat transfer, Heat capacity, Phase Changes

• Density, specific gravity

• Mathematics

• Business/Entrepreneurship

Given this broad overview of how we will teach our curriculum through projects that focus on addressing problems specific to an occupation, a general overview of the main areas of our curriculum is in order. First we should note that all subject areas support all applicable Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs) and all applicable state standards. Our math and language arts curricula are based on the Montessori curricula for those subjects. Specifically, we have based our curricula for these two subjects on the curricula developed by the Farm School in Hillsborough, Ohio (a school that is certified by the North American Montessori Association). Our science curriculum is based on the Montessori model with a heavy emphasis on the environmental strands that constitute the trade-mark of our school’s educational program. Our social science curriculum is an adapted version of the Michigan curriculum, with heavy emphasis on PBE. We have taken the Michigan social science curriculum and adapted it to fit into our occupations / project based instructional design.

PROJECT & PLACED BASED LEARNING

The Greenspire School’s instructional methodology focuses on active student learning through an occupations approach to subject-matter inquiry called Project Based Learning (PBL). Our model of PBL has students design projects which they then carry out with the assistance and consultation of their teachers and specialists from the community. Within this framework, students will engage in varied methods of instruction, such as:

• Individualized Instruction: Teachers will work with individual students on particular skills. Individual instruction allows for:

  1) customized instruction to a student’s learning level and needs

  2) interaction with students on a personal mentoring level

  3) hands-on instruction at a face-to-face level

  4) continual assessment of individual student progress.

   

• Small Group Instruction: Teachers will provide instruction in small group settings to deliver concepts, encourage discussion, use pairs or threes for writing feedback, etc.

• Large Groups: Students are gathered in large groups for student and guest presentations, productions, and large group morning meetings known as "council."

• Socratic Method: A specific pedagogy of question and responses that will be used often at Greenspire.

• Multi-age instruction: The Greenspire classroom will be a multi-age environment that encourages leadership in older peers through their mentoring of younger students. It is commonly accepted that teaching a concept truly solidifies mastery of it. Mentoring not only provides such teaching opportunities, but also allows students to work at their own pace in specific academic areas. Younger mentee students have been shown to react positively to peer teaching, looking forward to the time that they can be the mentors.

• Key Presentations/Stories: Brief, lively, story-like presentations by the adult/teacher to establish common background information, common vocabulary necessary for study, or common story frameworks. Older students will present as appropriate after information checks for accuracy.

• Personal Connecting Journaling: Students connect the concepts and information they have digested with their own lives and experiences through the sustained meditation and thought that journaling demands and inspires.

• Uninterrupted Learning Times: Greenspire’s daily schedule will allow for long periods of uninterrupted academic learning. Greenspire will avoid “periods” per se for the core curricular courses. Instead, more of a flexible modular schedule will be employed.

• Outdoor Education: Greenspire students will spend a significant percentage of their schooling time learning in the “outdoor classroom”, with modifications and accessibility provided for students with special needs. Working with experts in a project-based learning format with daily responsibilities for the care of the environment will have students learning in the outdoor classroom everyday. There is nothing like real, hands-on, experiential learning!

• Test Writing and Peer Corrections: In addition to a plethora of formal assessment, students will engage in their own “test writing,” accessing higher analytical skills and peer-correcting of student tests.

The main idea of Project-Based Learning (PBL) is that real-world projects engage students and provoke thinking as students acquire and apply new knowledge and problem-solving skills. Teachers act as facilitators that coach students, providing both knowledge and skill-development where appropriate, and assess what students have learned in order to guide further work.

The Buck Institute for Learning Handbook on PBL (Buck 2003) defines standards-focused PBL as “a systematic teaching method that engages students in learning knowledge and skills through an extended inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed products and tasks.” These learning processes have the following characteristics:

• Recognize students’ inherent drive to learn, their capability to do important work, and their need to be taken seriously by putting them at the center of the learning process.

• Engage students in the central concepts and principles of a discipline. The project work is central rather than peripheral to the curriculum.

• Highlight provocative issues or questions that lead students to in-depth exploration of authentic and important topics.

• Require the use of essential tools and skills, including technology, for learning, self-management, and project management.

• Specify products that solve problems, explain dilemmas, or present information generated through investigation, research, or reasoning.

• Include multiple products that permit frequent feedback and consistent opportunities for students to learn from experience.

• Use performance-based assessments that communicate high expectations, present rigorous challenges, and require a range of skills and knowledge.

• Encourage collaboration in some form, either through small groups, student-led presentations, or whole-class evaluation of project results.

INTRUCTIONAL METHODS WITH PROVEN STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Is Place-Based Learning successful?

Research by Thomas (2000) suggests that PBL is an equivalent or better model for producing gains in academic achievement. More importantly, evidence shows that PBL leads to higher-level cognitive development through engagement in complex problems. Thomas reports that PBL:

• Overcomes the dichotomy between knowledge and thinking, helping students to both “know” and “do”.

• Supports students in learning and practicing skills in problem solving, communication, and self-management.

• Encourages the development of habits of mind associated with lifelong learning, civic responsibility, and personal or career success.

• Integrates curriculum areas, thematic instruction, and community issues.

• Assesses performance on content and skills using criteria similar to those in the work world, thus encouraging accountability, goal setting, and improved performance.

• Creates positive communication and collaboration relationships among diverse groups of students.

• Meets the needs of the learners with varying skill levels and learning styles.

• Engages and motivates bored or indifferent students.

Higher Test Scores and Grades

Research by The Children, Youth and Environments Center for Research and Design at the University of Colorado at Denver reports the following:

• Students in schools and classrooms that use the environment as an integrating context for learning score higher on standardized tests in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies.

• Studies that have found higher test scores as a conse­quence of place-based education include: surveys of 40 schools across the nation with Environment as an Integrating Contest (EIC) programs, includ­ing comparisons of students in EIC versus traditional classrooms in 14 of these schools. (Lieberman & Hoody 1998) A Washington study that matched 77 EIC schools with demographically equivalent schools without environmental education (Bartosh 2003); a California study that matched eight classes with EIC programs with equivalent classes without EIC (SEER 2000); and a national study that found improved test scores in seven schools that adopted EIC approaches. (NEETF 2000)

• Other results from these studies indicate that stu­dents in EIC programs tend to improve their overall GPA, stay in school longer, and receive higher than average scholarship awards. They are perceived by their teachers to exhibit increased pride in their accomplishments and greater engagement and enthusiasm for learning.

• This last finding was replicated in a survey of 55 schools that represented four place-based education programs (Duf­fin et al. 2004) and an evaluation of ten middle schools in South Carolina that adopted EIC approaches. (Falco 2004)

More Advanced Critical Thinking Skills

A Florida study of 400 ninth and twelfth graders in 11 schools compared students’ critical thinking skills in EIC classrooms versus traditional classrooms. (Ernst & Monroe 2004) At both grade levels, the EIC programs significantly raised students’ scores on the Cornell Critical Thinking Test. Teach­er interviews indicated that EIC programs require students to integrate multiple disciplines, formulate and test hypotheses, investigate issues, take responsibility for their own learning, reflect on what they learn, and connect their learning to their communities.

Greater Achievement Motivation

Greater achievement motivation is associ­ated with greater engagement in schoolwork, which improves academic performance. In the Florida study of 400 ninth and twelfth grade students de­scribed above, students in classrooms with EIC programs and traditional programs filled out an Achievement Motivation Inventory. (Athman & Monroe 2004) At both grade levels, students in the EIC classrooms scored significantly higher in achievement motivation com­pared with students in the control classrooms. Students and teachers attributed this gain to the use of the local environment, the application of learning to real-life issues, and the ability to tailor learning experiences to students’ interests and strengths.

More Responsible Behavior and Environmental Stewardship

Students exposed to EIC programs display reduced discipline and classroom management problems (Falco 2004, Lieberman & Hoody 1998, NEETF 2000, SEER 2000), better attendance (SEER 2000), and more re­sponsible behavior in their school and com­munity (Bartosh 2003). The more exposure that students have to EIC programs, the more they report attachment to place, time spent out­doors, civic engagement, and environmental steward­ship. (Duffin et al. 2004)

Student Gains from Extended Stays at Outdoor Education Centers

In addition to place-based education which explores the local community and surrounding natural areas, some schools take students to environmental centers distant from their homes. A California study compared at-risk sixth graders who attended outdoor programs to study ecol­ogy and earth science with control groups from the same schools. (American Institutes of Research 2005) Students in the outdoor programs significantly raised their science scores and maintained greater science knowledge in a 10-week follow-up. They also showed more cooperation and conflict resolution skills (stu­dent assessments and teacher ratings), more positive environmental behaviors (parents’ ratings), better problem solving, improved motivation to learn, and appropriate classroom behavior (teachers’ ratings).