PORT TOWNSEND — The associate director of the Pacific Science Center of Seattle will discuss the impact of place-based learning on students during a lecture at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Dennis Schatz’s free presentation will be at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center’s Natural History Exhibit at 532 Battery Way in Fort Worden.
Schatz will speak on “Developing Youth Who are Critical Thinkers and Effective Science Learners.”
He will talk about the ways in which project-based and place-based learning experiences can enable children to develop critical-thinking skills and become effective science learners.
The lecture is open to parents, teachers, families and others who are interested.
Children will be welcome and can be signed in by a parent to attend a supervised, hands-on class and scavenger hunt of the touch tanks inside the marine science center’s marine exhibit, which will last for the duration of the public presentation.
The presentation is based on the National Research Council’s Next Generation Science Standards, known as three-dimensional learning, the marine science center said in a news release.
Place-based learning
The learning style is encouraged by the Maritime Discovery Schools Initiative, a curriculum begun by the Port Townsend School District to add maritime elements to traditional education as part of a place-based learning program.
In October, the marine science center received a $148,000 grant to support teacher training for the public school maritime program.
The three-year grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services was allocated to the center so the school district could bring in nationally recognized education leaders for teacher development and student programs.
The Maritime Discovery Schools Initiative has built about 40 partnerships. Collaborations include those with the marine science center, the Northwest Maritime Center, the North Olympic Salmon Coalition and Sound Experience, which operates the schooner Adventuress.
