This afternoon in the media center, students in Mia Diggs’ fourth period environmental science class presented about climate change to their peers and other classes that came to their science conference.
Students in Diggs’ class who were already excelling and wanted more of a challenge had the option to take on this project: researching and creating a presentation about climate change. After seeing which students could handle bigger projects and were high achievers in her class, Diggs asked them if they wanted to take it on.
“These are my higher excelling students, so some of the assignments that I would assign, they get done in like 5-10 minutes, so this is to challenge them,” she said. “A lot of them are university bound so it gives them that opportunity to research and present something that they’ll potentially be doing when they get to college.”
Her students that took on the climate change project have been working on it since Thanksgiving break. Daniel Moffit, a junior in Diggs’ class, found the project time consuming but rewarding.
“It’s nice to see my work shown to other people,” Moffit said. “I think this project helps people that might be bored in class vent some of that knowledge that they want to use, give them something to take up their time, and expand their curriculum.”
Although it was rewarding for students, Diggs said it was challenging to have students in her class doing different things.
“It is kind of hard sometimes, especially when we don’t get to pick the students in our classes, but when they’re labeled in an honors class when I have ESL kids all the way to kids who should be in an AP course, one thing I really do is I lean on my teammates,” she said.
Diggs credited the librarians with helping her put the science conference together.
“We sat down for a month just organizing what we want them to research and how we want them to present it,” she said. “This whole conference wouldn’t be happening without Dr. Gold and Ms. Wine.”
Another student who was presenting said she often hears about climate change from adults, and that the project was great way to take learning into her own hands
“It’s good for me to find my own information and my resources that are important enough for me to write it down, think about it, and put it in my own words,” sophomore Maria Mullaney said. “I feel like learning it… is a lot more helpful rather than just hearing it.”
Mullaney also said the format of the class and having the chance to work on the project was very helpful.
“It was nice to work with a teacher just in a small group because I felt like I could ask her more questions,” she said.
