SHS students learn by teaching

It is said that if you want to learn about a given subject, the best thing to do is teach it. That's what 50 high school biology students were doing last Friday afternoon with second graders at Sisters Elementary School.

In previous weeks the students, members of Rima Givot's biology class at the high school, studied classification, structure and function of plants. Then the students each picked a plant to research and applied the general knowledge they'd learned to understanding the plant they'd chosen.

The goal was two-fold: to learn about plants, and to write a book about their plant that would help teach second graders about plants.

Accomplishing those goals required personal discipline, knowledge of biology, knowledge of the English language and the ability to synthesize complex information in order to communicate it to the younger students. There was one more non-academic facet of this attempt to educate second graders: holding their attention. The high school students achieved that vital part of teaching with their personal enthusiasm and illustrations in the various plant books.

"The challenge for the high school students," Givot said, "was to be able to write what they'd learned in words that the elementary students could understand. They really had to understand the material to be able to explain the complex concepts in simple terms so the second grade students could learn how plants operate and what is needed for them to survive and thrive."

There were enough high school students to bring the student-to-teacher ratio to one or two second grade students per student-teacher. Each high school student found a place in a classroom to read with one or two second graders, and then the high school students presented their books to the younger students, leaving them with a memory of the experience.

Elise Ford, a second grader in Mrs. Stengel's class, thought her introduction to plant science was pretty exciting: "I was taught about a fly trap plant that lives in the Americas, it has lots of little hairs, and if a bug touches two hairs or more it snaps on the bug and traps it. The fly trap turns the bug into liquid, and uses it for it's food. Smaller bugs that enter the fly trap plant can often escape, so it wants bigger bugs that it can hold on to. The flowers on the plant attract the bugs by their smell.

"That's a pretty cool plant."

As the high school students were leaving the elementary school, Givot said to one of the teachers, "My last group of students returned to the high school exhilarated and with a sense of nostalgia - as many of the teachers remembered them. They really feel rewarded, they hoped to return again. This bunch feels the same."