The Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES) stresses the importance of promoting teacher leadership in the United States. Here at TIES we feel that our fellow teachers are our own best resources. We are looking for high school and college biology educators who are interested in presenting our TIES workshops to middle school science teachers in their state. Our reasoning is that a middle school science teacher will typically cover many areas of science within his/her annual curriculum, including earth science, physical science, and life science. It is virtually impossible to become an expert in all of these areas, at least not initially. The purpose of TIES is to inform interested middle school science teachers about the most up-to-date concepts of natural selection, common ancestry, and diversity in order for them to confidently cover the topics in their classrooms and fulfill their curriculum requirements. In addition to providing science teachers with innovative professional development opportunities, TIES also has ready-to-use online resources for the classroom, including presentation slides, labs, guided reading assignments, and an exam.
- TIES associate, Kenny Coogan, turned an otherwise underwhelming week into a successful one.
- We have another workshop confirmed:
September 16th, 2017 Greensboro Science Center, NC, presented by Alison Manka, the School and Aquarium Programs Manager
- Birmingham Zoo in Alabama would like to do middle & high workshop in October. Kenny is working out the details with them.
- The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota wants to touch base in January to schedule a spring workshop.
- Omaha, Nebraska is another possible location.
- We have another workshop confirmed:
- On my end, I reached out to educators in West Virginia, South Carolina, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Alaska. So far, I got responses from South Carolina and West Virginia.
- I also wrote a proposal for a workshop in Illinois after confirming we had a presenter available.
- Kenny’s TEDx video on sloths is up to 600,000. TIES is featured in the accompanying materials. We added a link to it on our mainpage.
- TIES FB is up to 917 fans, that is about 300 more than last November.
- The interview questions for the Dave Barry/Richard Dawkins event in Miami on May 27th are completed. I will send them to Dave pending approval from Robyn Blumner.