Amy Van Pelt: Gizmo Educator of the Month

Amy Van Pelt, a National Board Certified Teacher, has been teaching science in Arkansas for the past eight years; first in North Little Rock School District and now in Bentonville Public Schools. She received her board certification in Early Adolescent Science in 2007. She currently teaches 6th grade integrated science.

Mrs. Van Pelt's teaching style is to fuse hands-on labs with high-tech activities. When she attended a Gizmos training event in her district last year, she thought it would be only natural to incorporate Gizmos into each of her units.

When we asked her about how she uses Gizmos, Mrs. Van Pelt gave us a lot of interesting examples. She pointed to the Density Gizmo as a great tool for teaching that density is a characteristic property, and noted that she can easily differentiate the density lesson with this Gizmo. Students who quickly grasped the basics then move on to Density Experiment: Slice and Dice.

Her class voted the Forest Ecosystem Gizmo as their favorite. She uses this Gizmo to model the process of scientific inquiry, not as a rigid procedure, but as a flowchart of observations and ideas. She has the students play the role of scientists in real-world scenarios, such as becoming biologists collecting data and making observations to determine how a farm's use of fungicide might affect the local forest ecosystem.

“I asked the students what was it about Gizmos that most appealed to them. The first few answers were that Gizmos were fun interactive games, but with a bit more reflection students told me they enjoyed being able to manipulate situations, make decisions and predictions and receive immediate results and feedback.”