Hi! I’m Janneke Petersen.
The PROBLEM I had as a teacher
As a middle school science teacher, I wanted to involve my students in place-based, real-world projects. I wanted my students to be empowered to solve huge problems, like biodiversity loss. And I wanted my students to study our local ecosystem for our ecosystem unit. The only units available to me were based on ecosystems half way around the world!
I searched (and searched!) and could not find high-quality, PLACE-BASED ecosystem units that embedded REAL-WORLD PROJECTS. There were some half-baked ideas, but no high-quality units that provided all the materials I needed while meeting the high expectations of NGSS.
The SOLUTION I spent years developing
Then I discovered native plants and habitat restoration. A light bulb turned on. What if my students could PLANT NATIVE PLANTS in our own schoolyard, as a part of my ecosystem unit? My students and I could solve the problem of biodiversity loss in our own schoolyard and the restoration project could anchor a place-based ecosystem unit.
I spent five years developing the Schoolyard Habitat Restoration Unit. It has been field tested by twelve teachers and went through iterative design with multiple rounds of feedback from the pilot teachers and three Master teachers who reviewed the unit. The result is a high-quality, comprehensive unit with everything you need to teach.
