 Bernard Jokiel
Participation in the From Beneath the Ashes program has been the
most rewarding experience of my 28 years of teaching. I have always been
a strong advocate of hands-on/minds-on learning and outdoor education, and
it is exciting to work with enthusiatic teachers at Fermilab. I come away
from my contacts with Fermilab's programs, revitalized and that excitement
spreads to my students, colleagues and throughout my school community.
In 1991 Bernie Jokiel, a teacher at Washington Middle School in Aurora,
Illinois joined the development team for the New Explorers program,
From Beneath the Ashes. Inspired by his work at the Fermilab Education
Office, he authored an Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy Impact II
grant which sparked the local school board to set aside a ten-acre Nature
Center for the use of Washington students.
Mr. Jokiel, his Nature Center and his work with the Fermilab Prairie Experience
programs, From Beneath the Ashes and Particles and Prairies,
have had far reaching effects on the education of Washington Middle School
students. Every one of the 650 students at Washington Middle School has
direct involvement with the Nature Center, planting and tending prairie
grasses and forbs. Mr. Jokiel's team of four teachers including Science,
Social Studies and Mathematics each year teach 150 students an interdisciplinary
curriculum that has, as its basis, the Fermilab Prairie Experience.
Bernie Jokiel's work has gained the enthusiastic support of his Superintendent
and has involved partners from the surrounding community. West Aurora Eagle
Boy Scouts have organized projects involving brush clearing and prairie
burns at the Nature Center. The Aurora Tuesday Garden Club has donated money
and prairie seeds for the Center, and the local Rotary Club has supported
the Center with regular donations.
Bernie Jokiel's involvement with the Fermilab Education Office and its Prairie
Experience Instructional Units has affected the entire West Aurora school
district. The West Aurora High School's Earth Club uses the Nature Center
and the Quadrat Study unit from Particles and Prairies to learn about
and monitor the developing ecology of reconstructed prairie plots. In 1994,
Mr. Jokiel, with the co-operation of the West Aurora Superintendent of Instructional
Improvement authored an Illinois State Board of Educaiton Science Literacy
Grant to advance the Prairie Experience Instructional Units throughout the
school district. The fifth grade teaching staffs from all ten elementary
schools (about 20 teachers total) used the Fermilab Prairie Experience Instructional
Units in their 1995/96 curriculum. Money from the grant will also support
the staff development of the 7th and 8th grade teachers by paying their
registration fees for the Particles and Prairies Teacher Workshop,
and it will pay for three additional computers for Washington Middle School.
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