Teacher Creates Unique Relationship Between BHS and Chile

Published April 2, 2015

A high school biology teacher is bringing lessons she learned in Chile to her students at Brentwood High.

Biology teacher Rachel Lytle visited Las Crucus, Chile, March 6 through March 15 to study and learn more about overfishing and maintaining biodiversity through a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant called TRIAD.

“I was chosen as a teacher/grad student to work with the head of educational outreach for the marine biology research station there,” said Lytle. “I worked with a group of 13-year-old students who came on a field trip to the station to learn about overfishing and maintaining biodiversity.”

Lytle helped to create assessment tools and even introduced apps to help the students collect real-time formative assessment data.

“I helped create a pre/post assessment tool that the station could use to measure students’ knowledge growth through their visits and allow them to assess the effectiveness of their program,” said Lytle. “I showed the director an app that I use for bell work and how it was a good way to get the students’ responses to the assessments immediately. She loved it.”

Lytle was also able to go out in the field with researchers, giving her a first hand look at the items her students were studying.

“We crawled along the rocky coast measuring tide pools and collected starfish to measure their impact on the mussel population,” said Lytle. “I got to wear a wet suit and everything.”

Lytle is maintaining communication with the educational director of the station, and they are planning some joint lessons here and with the students in Chile that include the possibility of classes skyping each other in the future.