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Benefits to Students |
Benefits to Teachers |
Benefits to Communities |
| Meeting New
Mexico's Educational Needs |
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New Mexico
School Districts Involved with IEHMSP |
| New Mexico School Partners
| New Mexico Educational
Standards |
The IEHMS Project is geared toward training our school teachers to assist students to successfully...
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Develop competency in identifying problems, gathering data, arriving at solutions, and communicating findings
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Develop a sense of personal involvement in community issues
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Understand the connections between different academic subjects and real-life applications
New Mexico teachers who participate in the IEHMSP benefit in the following ways:
- All materials and training address specific state standards
- Access to environmental health experts and classroom resources
- Increased professional interactions with teacher peers and scientists
- Interactions with motivated students who are engaged and interested in their learning
New Mexico communities benefit from this program in the following ways:
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Students participate as active citizens
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Collaboration between students, school & community
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Empower people to make informed, responsible choices about how they interact with the environment
MEETING NEW MEXICO'S EDUCATION NEEDS
The IEHMS project has completed an array of classroom materials that support teaching of EHS topics, including asthma, lead, mercury, and diabetes across the disciplines (science, math, language arts, health, and social studies). Students progress through an “Environmental Health Integration Pyramid” that builds from structured curricular materials to problem-based learning to inquiry-driven projects.
Level 1 of the integration pyramid represents the most basic level where teachers incorporate environmental health topics into their classrooms and teachers take the lead within their subject matter to make connections between environmental health science content and a topic they are already teaching. This activity level is supported with the existing resources such as “Tox-in-a Box”, classroom speakers and laboratory tours.
Level 2 of the integration pyramid describes classroom activities that are not strictly inquiry-based, yet do use environmental health science topics to teach across multiple disciplines. With the help of teachers, project staff created the “Environmental Health Fact Files” that support activities in social studies, language arts, mathematics and science as well as a resource list for librarians. Topics addressed include lead poisoning and asthma.
At Level 3, teachers select the environmental health topics rather than the students. “The Quicksilver Question” web module is a student-centered learning adventure that models the steps one might take when researching a place-based issue. The module explores the lingering effects of mercury contamination from historic gold mining in a fictional rural community. Students use this module as a starting point for doing a teacher-guided EH research project.
At Level 4, the highest level of integration, students work with teachers from a variety of disciplines to identify and research an individual community-based environmental health science project. Student use the Health & Environment Activities Research Tool (H.E.A.R.T. manual) to guide the process. H.E.A.R.T includes extensive materials to support a project including student project guidelines, topic suggestions and project evaluation criteria.
NEW MEXICO SCHOOL DISTRICTS INVOLVED IN IEHMSP
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Albuquerque (APS)
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Clovis
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Taos
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Questa
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Espanola
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Pojoaque
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Santo Domingo
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Santa Fe
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Las Cruces
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Hayes Middle School (APS)
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Hoover Middle School (APS)
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Washington Middle School (APS)
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Van Buren Middle School (APS)
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Vision Quest Charter School (APS)
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Clovis High School New Visions
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Espanola Valley High School
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Holy Cross Catholic School
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Laguna Middle School
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Los Alamos Middle School
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Pojoaque Valley High School
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Pojoaque Valley Intermediate School
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Pojoaque Valley Middle School
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Santa Fe Indian School
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Santo Domingo Middle School
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Taos Municipal Schools
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Questa Middle/High School
NEW MEXICO EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS
All curricular materials have been designed to meet State of New Mexico learning standards and New Mexico teachers are trained to use these new materials during workshops providing teacher training and all necessary curricular materials for classroom use.
