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| Science and Nature Education Programs |
 New
England Wildlife Center is committed to providing quality
educational programs to students that will help ensure habitat
and wildlife preservation into the next century. Our programs
bring students into contact with native and naturalized wild
animals through hands-on, interactive environmental education
programs.
Live wild animals that cannot be released back into the wild
including owls, hawks, snakes, turtles, lizards, and geese
accompany us to each program. Our goal is to provide students
with firsthand, "real" experience with a wild animal
and to teach them basic scientific skills such as comparison,
observation and interpretation that will empower them to assess
the environment and wildlife for themselves. Last year our
programs reached more than 15,000 children in the classroom,
through youth organizations and our onsite camp program.
Our educators rely on a student's personal knowledge of their
surroundings, encourage learning through discovery and by
asking questions, and empower our students to make their own
assessments about their individual habitats. Through this
type of education, students begin to recognize, understand,
appreciate and value, wildlife and our environment. Our students
will only protect what they value and understand.
These programs will have far reaching implications by helping
to ensure that the next generation protects wildlife species,
habitats and other natural resources.
New England Wildlife Center is a wildlife teaching hospital.
Our educators work in the field of veterinary medicine as
veterinarians and wildlife technicians. From this knowledge
and experience, they are best able to teach others.
In-School Learning
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| Educational Technique & Philosophy |
 Programs
are constructed to follow a series of simple steps. The first
step is to capture the students' attention with the presence
of live wild and domestic animals. Many of our students have
never seen these kinds of animals, and most have only second
hand information from lectures, books, television or computers.
The use of live animals in conjunction with developing inquiry
and observation skills is a hallmark of our programs. Facts
about animals are important, but learning how to learn directly
from them is more important. Comparing and contrasting live
animals is the most fruitful technique because it builds on
a student's own personal experience and knowledge.
Our educational programs are designed to develop this learning
skill. Next we model a series of observations. This is a process
of comparing and contrasting anatomical and behavioral features
of the live animals present. We demonstrate this process for
the students first so that they can then emulate it. Students
complete these programs skilled in this style of investigation
and interpretation. They readily observe, compare, and interpret
other animals and objects in the same way.
Students also transfer this educational technique to more
than just biology. It is apropos in chemistry, earth science,
physics and even the language arts. The Science and Nature
Education Series is designed to reflect teacher's and student's
needs in relation to the Massachusetts Science and Technology
Curriculum Frameworks. In each presentation students are encouraged
to ask questions and to interact as much as possible with
the live animals.
The content of a particular presentation can be modified to
suit specific curriculum needs. The specific grade level sequence
of programs is designed to complement the Frameworks and the
learning levels of the students.
Educational
Philosophy
All programs include live animals as a central theme. Presentations
are informal, and encourage questions.
It is the goal of the Center to empower students of all ages
with observational and investigation skills in order to encourage
a more interactive, authoritative relationship with the environment
and wildlife.
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| Sevens |
The premise of Sevens is that if every
person in the Commonwealth could name just seven birds, seven
mammals, seven herbs, seven trees, seven rocks and/or seven
clouds, our populace would be more environmentally literate.
The Center’s educators combine schoolyard natural history
with hands-on exposure to wildlife with incremental classroom
training in observation and interpretation and other science
concepts, content and process skills that are tied to the
Massachusetts Science and Technology Curriculum Frameworks.
To learn more about this program, click the link below:
Sevens
(Adobe ® PDF format)
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| Clear as Mud |
As Clear as Mud, is an interdisciplinary
curriculum that will help 7th and 8th grade students and their
teachers in schools on or near Dorchester, Quincy and Hingham
Bay (e.g. Malibu Beach, Wollaston Beach) explore the history,
health and natural and biological uses and abuses of these
waterways.
To learn more
about this program, click the link below:
Clear
as Mud
(Adobe ® PDF format)
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| Awash! |
Awash! combines the H20 water curriculum
with the skills training and sustained programming of Sevens.
The philosophy of the Awash! program is that environmental
literacy and preservation are best achieved by helping citizens
to understand and “know” their natural world,
which exists in their own schoolyards, parks, nature reserves
and watersheds.
To learn
more about this program, click the link below:
Awash!
(Adobe ® PDF format)
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