Staff Writer

  Students at Scarborough Middle School can now play video games and receive an education at the same time, at least in science class.

 The EcoScienceWorks program, developed with collaboration from the Maine Audubon Society, the MIT Teacher Initiative, SimBiotic Software and Camp Kiev, has recently been implemented into Scarborough Middle School teacher Sashi Kaufman’s classroom, as well as the classrooms of about 40 teachers throughout the state, says Maine Audubon environmental education director Kara Wooldrik.

 The EcoScienceWorks program is an ecology course using computer simulation as well as natural research in the outdoors. Students will be able to learn about ecosystems through labs set up in the computer system as well as labs set up for them to do research outside. 

  “We signed up 30 middle school science teachers for a three year process,” she said. “The teachers would work with us for two weeks each summer and we were able to create 700 labs that could be worked on.”

  Kaufman said she has used the program with her students for the last three years.

  “I would meet up with the other teachers using the program twice a year, once in the summer and a weekend in February at Camp Kiev, and we would give feedback and suggest tweaks that should be made to the program.

  The program is funded through the “I Test” grant by the National Science Foundation, a United States government agency which promotes science through research programs and educational projects.

  Kaufman, who has taught at Scarborough Middle School for five years, said the program was presented to her three years ago by grant administrators Walter Allen and Jerry Erickson.

  “I received a flyer about creating this curriculum and I was interested,” she said. “It involves a series of labs, each one has an ecological concept. Some labs are on the computer, while others involve going outside to do research. The students get to work on the same kinds of things that real scientists do.”

  Kaufman said each of her students has the program set up on their laptop computers, which come from the Maine Middle School Laptop Program. 

    “All of the ecosystems used in the computer program are based in Maine,” she said. “For example, with our “Keystone Invaders” lab, the student gets to choose a number of certain creatures to put into a tidepool. As they include or take away creatures, the computer shows the population change, because creatures will eat other creatures.”

    Wooldrik said the program also involves students going out into nature to do research. She said an example of a lab in the EcoScienceWorks program involves water runoff.

  “The students can go out in the school yard and do simulations,” she said. “They can go out, pour some water and see how fast it flows. They can enter the data into the program and see how the runoff might effect the area in 100 years.”

   Kaufman said she has had students measure oxygen levels in ponds.

  “The students seem to enjoy going outside,” she said. 

 Kaufman said as part of the learning process of the EcoScienceWorks program, she, along with a few of her students, tested the program during the summer at Hogs Island in Bremen.

   “We went out to Hogs Island to test the program,” she said. “We used the students as guinea pigs by having them do some of the labs. Members of the Audubon Society were there and the students gave them feedback on what they thought of the program.”

   Wooldrik said since the program is now done with its three-year testing phase, it is now available to all middle school science teachers throughout the state.

 “It’s available on their servers,” she said. “The only thing the teacher has to do is download the program on all of their students laptops, at no cost.”

    Kaufman says the students enjoy the program.

     “It’s great because it’s kind of like a computer game but with logic and sequence,” she said. “It’s great learning. [The students] seem to really enjoy it. It’s not just researching, they control everything involved with the program. It’s awesome. I can’t imagine teaching without it.”