Teacher Workshops

Get the Most Out of Your Lesson:  Take it Outdoors

Date:  Thursday, June 14^th and Friday, June 15^th, 2012
Facilitators:  Gary Andersen, MNU,  Jan Alderson, Shawnee Mission South, Sally Bell, Outdoor Educator, Alaine Hudlin, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism
Time:  8:00am – 4:00pm
Location:  MNU Campus and The Prairie Center, Olathe, KS
Audience:  Elementary and Secondary Teachers
Description: This workshop is appropriate for elementary and secondary teachers in all disciplines and will promote the utilization of outdoor learning environments in a variety of disciplines (science, math, art, social studies, language arts).  Teachers will;  1.) learn about the benefits of using outdoor resources in their own discipline, 2.) engage in exemplar (best practices) outdoor-oriented, developmentally appropriate learning activities and 3.) plan and submit an outdoor lesson with a focus on learning standards relevant to their own content. Take-away classroom materials and resources are provided to teachers completing this course.
Credit:  2 hours of Cont. Ed. credit are offered.
Cost:   No charge unless Cont. Ed.  credit is desired.  ($75 / Cont. Ed. credit – total cost of credit $150)

What’s in There?  Organic Instrumental Methods

Dates:  Monday, June 18^th through Friday, June 22^nd , 2012
Instructor:  Faith Jacobsen, PhD,  MNU Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Time:  8:30am – 3:30pm
Location:  Osborne Hall, MNU
Audience:  High School Chemistry Teachers (Limit 6)
Description: This course is designed specifically to re-introduce high school chemistry teachers to the instruments and techniques used in modern organic chemistry.  The emphasis will be identification of unknown organic compounding using infra-red spectroscopy (IR),  1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy  (NMR) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometery (GC-MS).  Participants will review the underlying principles, learn pedagogical methods for teaching spectroscopy, engage in laboratory work with the instruments and characterize unknown compounds.  Participants completing the course will be encouraged to expand a collaborative effort between their own students and the Chemistry department at MidAmerica Nazarene University around the use of organic instrumentation in high school science fair research and chemistry projects.
Credit:  3 hours of Cont. Ed. credit will be offered.
Cost:   No charge unless Cont. Ed. credit is desired.  ($100 / Cont. Ed. credit – total cost of credit $300)