The Biology of Food
led by Scott Poethig, Professor of Biology
Tuesdays, 4:30-6:30pm
Species require only two things to survive over time—food and sex—and for some species, sex is optional. This seminar will examine major topics in biology through the lens of food, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which humans modify, and have been modified by, the organisms we eat. Topics will include the chemistry, cell biology, and physiology of plants and animals, human nutrition, and the origin of domesticated plants and animals, focusing on the ways in which domesticated organisms have been genetically modified by humans. We will also examine agricultural systems from an ecological perspective, and consider the place of agriculture in the global economy.
Lectures and discussions will be supplemented with class demonstrations, and teachers who have developed particularly effective labs/demonstrations related to food will be encouraged to present these to the class. Classroom educators from many grade levels will find the topics applicable to their teaching of science.
Native American Voices: The People – Here and Now
led by Lucy Fowler Williams, Associate Curator and Senior Keeper of American Collections at the Penn Museum
Wednesdays, 4:30-6:30pm
This seminar will be taught at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and is inspired by the new exhibition Native American Voices: The People – Here and Now which will open at Penn Museum on March 1, 2014. The exhibition introduces contemporary Native American leaders and concerns in Indian Country today, against the backdrop of Penn Museum’s remarkable Native American collections. The course will ask the following questions: What is the status of Native Americans in our country today? What issues are of concern in Indian country now? And, who are some of the current leaders? Topics to be explored include Native American sovereignty, language preservation, the importance of sacred places, the significance of ongoing commemorations and celebrations, and economic and health initiatives. Teachers will have the opportunity to explore a variety of tribes and topics and to become familiar with Native American material culture through hands on experience. Teachers can create their own curriculum in relation to, or independent of, the five year exhibition.
Robotics for Everyone!
led by Jorge Santiago-Aviles, Associate Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering
Tuesdays, 4:30-6:30pm
Participating teachers will be able to take back to their students some basic principles that illustrate what is a robot, what they can do, and how to put together a simple robot. Robots provide the teachers a wonderful context for the study/learning of physics, chemistry, math, computer science, and engineering/technology (all the STEM disciplines). Also, elementary schools are increasingly involved with junior LEGO league robotics competitions. The seminar is therefore appropriate for elementary, middle, and high school teachers of science.
This seminar will focus on the principles and practice of robotics. It will be in the form of a series of weekly workshops (hands-on) in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) Electrical Engineering facilities. Experienced robotics instructors are welcome, but no previous knowledge of robotics or electronics is required. All of the exercises will be self-contained. Necessary hardware and equipment will be furnished.
The workshop participants will learn fundamental aspects of: systems and system dynamics; feedback and control strategies; sensors, actuators and signal conditioning; interfacing hardware to computers/controllers; simple computer programming and coding.
Teaching the Holocaust: Bearing Witness
led by Al Filreis, Professor of English
Tuesdays, 5-7pm
This course is about how people tell stories about trauma and traumatic experience – and how survivors of genocide deal with the responsibility they feel to speak for those who died. Our approach to these large issues is through the Holocaust, and we will discuss the enormous difficulties faced by those who felt the urgent need to describe their own or others’ experiences during the genocide of the European Jews, 1933-1945. We will explore the complex options they have faced as narrators, witnesses, allegorists, memoirists, scholars, teachers, writers and image-makers. Some linguistically (or visually) face the difficulty head on; most evade, avoid, repress, stutter or go silent, and agonize. Part of the purpose of the course is for us to learn how to sympathize with the struggle of those in the latter group. This is not a history course, although the vicissitudes of historiography will be a frequent topic of conversation.
We will read books by survivors, watch video-recorded testimony of survivors telling their compelling stories, and watch films seeking to represent the genocide.
Some of the books we will read can be used by teachers in middle- and high-school classes, and some of the materials have been carefully and selectively adapted for elementary grades. How a curriculum unit can be developed around issues of genocide, racial hatred, survivor guilt, guilty bystanding, and the individual human response to trauma will be a focus of the course as well.
Materials to be read/viewed: Aharon Appelfeld, The Story of a Life (memoir; selections); Schindler’s List (film); Video testimonies of Holocaust survivors (from the Yale archive); Heinrich Boll, “Across the Bridge” (short story); Selection of poems by Paul Celan; The Diary of Anne Frank; Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (selection of 2 chapters); Rob Fitterman, Holocaust Museum; Elie Wiesel, Night.
The Teachers Institute of Philadelphia 