Students at Greeley West know about being international becuase of IB, but the school reached a new international level when science teachers Mr. Tony Scott and Mr. Ryan Knoblock travelled to New Orleans to attend the International Conference of the Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE) to present a grant project they have been working on.
In collaboration with the University of Northern Colorado, Scott and Knoblock have been working on a project called STELLA CO2, which is a set of instructional practices that science teachers are able to use to help mentor science teachers create a common language to discuss practices within science instruction.
Scott and Knoblock are also working with BSCS Science Learning, a company based in Colorado Springs. They work together with science professors from the University of Northern Colorado to revamp the STELLA strategies used.
Scott has since taken over a science course for the step one and step two teaching students, leading the charge for the future science teachers coming out of the university.
The project has been on-going for Scott for nearly seven years. When Scott was told that the company needed more people to present their research, he thought who better to rely on than his own colleague.
“I wasn’t brought into the project until a year later when it started,” Knoblock explained. “Give or take, the research that was presented has been in progress for around seven years. To see how far this project has accomplished it’s satisfying to see the progress.”
While they were at their conference the two colleagues managed to spend some quality time together away from the convention. They took advantage of some down time in New Orleans by taking the mandatory taste-test of the city.
“We were able to try some new food. My definite favorite was this place called The Gumbo Shop. They had this meal where they had jambalaya, creole shrimp, and red beans with rice. Just anything they had from that area itself and it was really amazing,” Scott explained.
“Being in Colorado you don’t get much access to the savory and flavorful food that is a part of that region and my personal favorite being the many cajun dishes,” Knoblock added.
Being in New Orleans it’s also impossible to go without listening to the rich jazz music that has been mastered in the region. It’s nice to imagine Scott and Knoblock getting groovy to some sophisticated jazz. “We were able to sit in and listen to some good jazz music,” Scott said. “Touring the city and seeing the different architecture was something else that I personally enjoyed.”
It’s great that the Spartans are being represented at the international level. Unfortunately they weren’t able to bring some of the Cajun food home that they talked about.
