The Brady Project
Two New Philadelphia High School science teachers, Jody and Kip Brady, were recently published in American Biology Teacher (ABT), the official, peer-reviewed journal of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT). As life science educators, the husband and wife team decided to publish in ABT, because they felt that it would reach the widest audience of life science educators, in the issue focusing on biodiversity.The paper describes a project that started at New Philadelphia High School to involve students in the study of their local environment, entitled Measuring the Mining Effect, and it involved the students studying and measuring the diversity of invertebrate animals in forests with and without a history of coal strip mining. The Bradys chose to focus on coal mining because of the relevance to the local landscape—there are approximately 30,000 acres of old strip mines that have reverted to forest in Tuscarawas County. Strip mining remains the dominant method of coal mining today, and coal is the principal source of energy for electricity generation in the U.S. The paper presented their project as a model that could be adapted by biology teachers anywhere to involve their students in the use of science to answer authentic questions about the places where they live.
A growing body of evidence suggests people have become less familiar with nature as society has limited opportunities for direct experience with it. It is critical that teachers provide educational experiences that transcend computers and classrooms and allow students to explore the reality of their environment in its current and historical contexts. As David Orr suggested, “We need education that changes how people live, not just how they talk.” Although field trips are traditionally treated as expendable luxuries, in their paper the Bradys propose that what we call field experiences—field trips that involve students in the intimate and systematic study of their environment—should be viewed as an essential element in the process of educating people.
Kip and Jody Brady each hold a master’s degree, and have been with the district for 10 years.