Teacher Connection

Liberty Science Center’s Teacher Connection is a fun-filled professional development program for K-12 teachers. Meeting in the Center's new Jennifer A. Chalsty Center for Science Learning & Teaching on one Saturday each month, the program takes a closer look at topics taught by teachers throughout the area.

In most cases, teachers get a certificate for three hours of professional development. When a program is designed for a longer period of time, the credits are adjusted. Liberty Science Center is a registered provider of professional development in New Jersey and New York.

After each workshop, participants go home with an information packet and copies of the hands-on activities for use in their classrooms. Here is a description of the programs planned for the 2007-2008 school year:

Grand Reopening!
Islamic Science Rediscovered
October 6, 2007 | 9 a.m. to noon

Celebrate Liberty Science Center’s grand reopening. Experience the new Jennifer A. Chalsty Center for Science Learning & Teaching, the new home for teachers. View the new exhibitions, programs and theater experiences. See how you and your students can take advantage of opportunities to meet and assist scientists conducting research onsite.

During this program, we will concentrate on our new traveling exhibition, Islamic Science Rediscovered, guided by our expert staff. Expand your vision of history when you understand the extraordinary science and technology achieved from Spain to China during the fifth through fifteenth centuries.

Professional Development Credits: 3
New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards: 5.1, 5.2
New York Core Curriculum Standards: 4, 6

Live From... Videoconferencing
Opening New Horizons in the Classroom
November 3, 2007 | 9 a.m. to noon

Learn about videoconferencing technology and get hands-on training in using the equipment from Liberty Science Center’s dynamic educators. Discover the opportunities that are available to you and your students when you connect with the Science Center’s Electronic Fieldtrips. These inquiry-based programs are the educator’s two-way audio/video link to the scientific explorations of Liberty Science Center’s hundreds of hands-on exhibits, and to our science experts.

Professional Development Credits: 3
New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards: 5.1, 5.4, 5.10
New York Core Curriculum Standards: 1, 5, 6

Skyscraper! Achievement and Impact
December 1, 2007 | 9 a.m. to noon

Have you ever watched a construction worker balance on the steel framework of a skyscraper and wondered what it would be like to be up there? Experience the feeling of walking (in a harness) on an I-beam high above Liberty Science Center’s gallery floor. Design your own skyscrapers, conduct wind tunnel tests on their designs, and see how water and air are transported to the top of a skyscraper. Learn what Liberty Science Center did to make its new facility a “green building.” Meet with an architect and an engineer who design and build green buildings in the metropolitan area.

Professional Development Credits: 3
New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards: 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.7, 5.10
New York Curriculum Standards: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7

Cutting Edge Lecture Series:
Global Warming
January 5, 2008 | 9 a.m. to noon

What is “The Inconvenient Truth”? Dan Smith, an ecologist and the director of Liberty Science Center’s Abbott Partnership Program, will address some of the major issues of global warming as presented in Vice President Al Gore’s award-winning documentary.

Join Chatham High School earth science teacher Missy Holzer and see how one teacher can make a contribution to stem the effects of global warming. Share her findings as a participant in a three-week international deep-sea coring research cruise aboard the Marion Dufresne off the coast of Chile. The primary objective of this cruise was to recover marine sediment to document environmental, climatic and oceanographic changes in the southeast Pacific. Cores that were obtained are now being analyzed to see the effects of global warming.

Professional Development Credits: 3
New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards: 5.1, 5.2, 5.4, 5.5, 5.8, 5.10
New York Core Curriculum Standards: 4, 5, 6, 7

Infection Connection
February 2, 2008 | 9 a.m. to noon

View our new Infection Connection exhibition and learn about how we share the world with microbes. See how the decisions we make on a daily basis, whether as an individual or as a society, contribute to the rise and fall of disease. Explore the interactions between microbes and humans, and see how science develops tools and technologies to fight infectious disease. Board our Subway Car Theater to find out how infections move across town and around the world. Enter a working wet lab to conduct experiments and identify microbes while finding out how to protect yourself from infections.

Professional Development Credits: 3
New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards: 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.10
New York Core Curriculum Standards: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

The World of Communication
March 1, 2008 | 9 a.m. to noon

Learn about the dynamic and changing nature of human communication in our new Communication exhibition. Create electronic graffiti, try a new form of verbal expression using language karaoke, and discover the evolution of verbal, pictorial, print and digital communication.

Join staff educator Lisa Solmose and discover how animals communicate. Step into the world of the deaf to learn about American Sign Language from speech therapist Kristine Simmon.

Professional Development Credits: 3
New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards: 5.2, 5.4, 5.7, 5.10
New York Core Curriculum Standards: 4, 5, 6

Cutting Edge Science Lecture Series
Live From… Robotic Surgery
April 5, 2008 | 9 a.m. to noon

Just as computers revolutionized the 20th century, robotics will greatly alter how we live in the 21st century. Visit our new Interactive Theater and experience the DaVinci Robotic Surgical System, which enables surgeons to perform complex surgeries in a minimally invasive way.

See the use of a computer console to perform operations from a distance. This technique of tele-surgery can allow a doctor to perform delicate surgery miles away from the patient.

Professional Development Credits: 3
New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards: 5.2, 5.4, 5.7, 5.10
New York Core Curriculum Standards: 4, 5, 6

Cutting Edge Science Lecture Series
Understanding Autism: The Educator’s Role
May 3, 2008 | 9 a.m. to noon

Explore how autistic children think and learn and how their abilities vary from gifted to severely challenged. Learn to identify the developmental milestones in children and recognize the early warning signs of autism and other developmental disabilities. Understand the strategies that stress early intervention, which can greatly improve a child’s development. See how educational interventions such as structure, direction and organization are customized to the strengths and needs of the individual learner. See the relationship between autism and parenting stress.

Professional Development Credits: 3
New Jersey State Core Curriculum Standards: 5.1, 5.2, 5.5
New York State Core Curriculum Standards: 4, 5, 7

Our Hudson Home
June 7, 2008 | 9 a.m. to noon

Learn about estuary wildlife, the relationships between nature and humanity, and how human choices and actions affect the ecological health of the Hudson River. See how the complex balance of commerce, recreation and environmental preservation coexist. Peek into three large tanks and view different Hudson-based environments. Operate the controls of a cargo crane to load and unload shipping containers. Experiment with a sedimentation table to see the effects of dredging or deepening shipping channels by changing water and sediment levels in a simulated riverbed.

You can also board a Coast Guard vessel and examine the open waters of the Hudson first hand. Hands-on activities will be performed aboard the boat.

Professional Development Credits: 4
New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards: 5.l, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.8, 5.10
New York Core Curriculum Standards: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Sign Up Today!

Call for information: Anthony Bisulca at 201.253.1290 or Pat Casey at 201.253.1242
Cost: $139.00 for yearlong membership; $60.00 per session