Trevor Tyner: Gizmo Educator of the Month

	Mr. Tyner demonstrating gas laws to his students.

Trevor Tyner teaches science at Lake Worth High School in Palm Beach, Florida. In the past five years he has taught biology, chemistry, physics, marine, environmental, and integrated science. He dove into Gizmos as soon as his district started using them, and they fit very well into his lesson plans.

Mr. Tyner starts many of his lessons by explaining the basics of the material. He then extends that with a live demonstration of the concept and reinforces it by letting his students explore with Gizmos.

As an example, in his integrated science class unit on the solar system, he let his students delve into Gizmos such as Phases of the Moon and Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun to discover the effects of planetary bodies on moon phases, tides, and seasons.

He also demonstrated the lesson by gathering his students into the center of the room, giving them the perspective of the Earth, as he walked around (orbited) them while holding a volleyball (the moon). Trevor reports that this "first-hand" experience of moon phases, combined with independent learning from the Gizmos, tied all the concepts together into a lasting lesson for his students.

“I can get my kids to memorize information and regurgitate material, but getting them to really understand the concepts is always a challenge. Because the Gizmo allows each student to manipulate their own models, it's just like a scaled down science experiment. When they are actually able to perform the experiments themselves, they almost always have a more thorough understanding of the material.”