Oglala Lakota College Teacher Workshop
LSOP has long partnered with Oglala Lakota College (OLC) on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and teacher professional development is a cornerstone of this partnership. Our first workshop with OLC workshop was in 2008, and we had traveled to Pine Ridge annually to do these workshops up until the pandemic made this impossible. We were thrilled to travel to OLC in July to present our first in-person workshop since 2020!
Our OLC partner, Misty Brave, arranged for 15 teachers of various levels and experiences — from preservice elementary teachers to veteran high school science teachers — to take part in this workshop. The LSOP crew consisted of two LSOP staff (including a former high school teacher and current university physics instructor) and two physics students (one who plans to be a physic teacher). The workshop modeled inquiry-based active learning, and it followed the 5E model of instruction: engage, explore, explain, extend, evaluate. Each day had a different theme and teachers explored actives related to four different topics: Light and Color, Beyond the Rainbow, Images and Lenses, and Explore Your World. The teachers all received materials for their classrooms for each activity including thermal cameras, digital microscopes, lens sets, rainbow glasses with lights and filters, as well as a class set of Halliburton Science-at-Home kits.
