- Year 2022
- NSF Award #1852787
- Registration Former Noyce Scholar
- First Name Jose
- Last Name Garcia-Villar
- Discipline Geosciences
- Institution Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School.
- School Name and District Currently Teaching Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School
Abstract
In this poster, three Noyce scholars from the American Museum of Natural History’s Earth Science Residency Program will share strategies designed to build school and classroom communities. As preservice Earth science teachers, our experiences in our school residencies were dramatically affected by school closures and the shift to remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We began our teaching careers in high-need schools throughout New York City during the pandemic, pivoting between remote, hybrid, and in in-person classroom instruction. Throughout the past year, we have continued to negotiate the challenges brought on by the ongoing pandemic and increase in visibility of racial and social injustices. In this ongoing context of stress, violence, and racism, we have chosen to focus on our students’ social and emotional well-being. We will describe our distinct school environments and share our individual approaches to building community, respect, and supportive relationships. The strategies that we will share include incorporating community circles into science class, sketching objects, and using free writes with our students. One of the questions we seek to address in this poster will be: What are the qualities that build a strong community for the teaching and learning of science?
