Photo: Lucia Eames
In yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, there was a wonderful article about 4th graders from Town School teaching visitors at the California Academy of Sciences about the importance of the rain forest by being docents at the museum. “The academy’s program… provides teachers with classroom kits that include lesson plans and items such as quartz and gravel, a bat skull or a device that mimics bat echolocation – all of which are used to educate students on topics like the rain forest.”
The combined efforts of the students, teachers at school and staff at the museum yield a very rewarding experience for everyone (similar to the High School Explainer program at the Exploratorium also in San Francisco). As one empowered 10 year-old explained, “I wanted to know what we are doing when we hurt the rain forest. Then I found out if we keep cutting the trees, they’ll be gone in 40 years. That’s not good.”