Meet Rob Aptaker, EIC Support Teacher & Community Partner Specialist
On any given day, you’ll see our students out and about, investigating, observing and taking in the world around them. Our staff constantly surprises us with creative, innovative teaching methods that inspire students to dive in and take charge of their learning. How do they do it? Let us introduce you to one of our teachers, give you a glimpse inside academic life at Seven Generations and show you EIC in action.

What is your position at Seven Generations? What does the EIC Support Teacher do?
My duties include working with classroom teachers to create projects and activities to enhance (and enliven) the hands-on and project-based nature of our learning activities. As a person with a background which includes lots of outdoor learning and teaching -- such as instructing wilderness challenge courses and edible plant identification, working at a community education organic farm, as well as involvement with Native American people and knowledge of their histories and stories, I am able to augment and support standards-based learning that goes on in many of our grades.

I help out indirectly by scouting out-of-school learning activities. For example, last year our third graders did a mini unit on space, and the teachers were hoping to do a trip to a planetarium. The one most people knew about had recently become unavailable. So I did some research -- mostly by computer, and found a small planetarium on South Mountain run by the Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society.  We arranged for one of the volunteers to do a program for our third graders there.

I also seek out community partnerships to connect our school with organizations and individuals in our community who can help us, and who we can help.

What is special about our EIC curriculum?
One obvious answer is that it is community specific. Unlike many canned curricula which may be designed for students in a general region or a state, our learning activities are rooted in the local community. Learning at every level draws on the history, geography, and climatic conditions of Emmaus and the Lehigh Valley. Additionally, the hallmark of the EIC is the fact that it is driven by questions -- student questions. So not only are the units rooted in the local environment, but the learning springs from questions the children ask. Teachers have the task of guiding children to ask the questions which will yield useful learning, but the questions do come from the students. Teachers write unit outlines and offer guiding questions (especially in the beginning of a unit), but they are open to moving in whatever directions student interest takes them. In a pre-written curriculum, questions that take the class away from the prepared lesson are sometimes viewed as distractions from 'what we're supposed to do.' In the EIC model, such questions open new areas of investigation which enrich learning and student 'buy in.' As I noted earlier, EIC investigations involve as much outdoor and hands-on project-based learning as possible. But we don't just go outside to be outside, or do projects to keep things interesting; the outdoor activities and projects arise from student interest and the guiding questions they co-create as they undertake their investigations. 

In my EIC support role, I often ask teachers what classes are learning and investigating. Then I see if I can find a project or illustrative demonstration I can do with the students -- one that supports and augments the learning they're already about. In some cases I can offer stories from Native American cultures which enrich the learning by bringing in different cultural perspectives or stimulate creative thought. So I face the same exciting professional challenge classroom teachers face:  How can I help make these ideas come alive for students? Where is the intersection between their current experience and the understanding that is available to them as they engage this information? How do I help them see it without simply telling them what I want them to see?

What types of projects do you work on with students?
Where do I start? We've done quite a few of these in the first couple years of the school. One that got a lot of attention -- because it was more public and visible -- was the maple syrup making project. This was geared primarily to second and fourth grades who were doing units about Trees and Forests and PA Native Americans and Eastern Woodland Trees and Forests. But we also involved first graders who were learning about agriculture and farms. We also shared some of the 'results' with students in other grades. The kids helped tap the trees, observed the quantities of sap produced by trees of different sizes (and on days when the weather was colder or warmer or sunnier or shady), helped collect the sap, tasted it, took some sap home to boil (and reduce) and then witnessed me doing the final boiling over a fire to make syrup. Second graders also heard me tell an Ojibwe story about the origin of maple syrup as well as Cherokee and Iroquois teachings about the powers and characteristics of maples and other trees. This broad approach: learning that a tree can be a source of human food, that there are legends and ideas about the tree and its features and characteristics, is a way of taking the science of learning about trees and giving some depth and cross cultural perspective on the topic.  Bear in mind that the syrup project, the stories and Native teachings are overlaid onto the investigations the classes are already doing as they adopt a tree and do bark rubbings, leaf pressing, and other hands-on and text-based learning about trees and their role in the local ecosystem. The projects I do supplement and support the daily investigations their teachers lead them on and through each day of an EIC unit.

Here's a partial list of some of the other projects I've helped classes undertake:


• 2nd grade grew oyster mushrooms on straw (left over from our scarecrow contest) as part of their investigation of the decomposition cycle in forests.

• As part of their investigations into pre-colonial Native American life students in fourth grade did a number of activities such as:
 making cordage (string) from plant fibers. Students learned to identify the dogbane and milkweed plants of PA and to peel, rub and twist the outer bark fibers into string using the reverse wrap technique. This multi-step process of making functional, durable string from plants found in our local environment, really drives home the idea that the things humans use come from the earth. Once they'd made string, kids could see that the finished product didn't look like the raw material, but one had actually been derived from the other. 

• Fourth graders also tried the tools and technique for making fire by friction (bow and drill method). Two classes even made the spindle and socket (two parts of the fire-making set) using the abrasion method of shaping wood, and the "pecking" technique for chipping stone.

• We even did controlled burning and scraping experiments for making wood tools. To do this I worked with groups of 3 or fewer kids at a time and had them use fire coals and clam shells to burn and scrape cup and bowl-like containers from seasoned wood. We did not have the time to completely carve the wood, but kids got to see that it was possible, and they were able to see fire used as a tool for creating objects people use.

• Last year one fourth grade class made scale model wig-wams with natural materials.

• This year the sixth graders will work with me to make charcoal as part of their investigation of the history of South Mountain. There was a period of time in the early 20th century when large portions of the local forest were clear cut to make charcoal for the steel industry. We'll do an experiment with two methods of producing charcoal to see if one is more efficient than the other. We'll also get a sense of how much waste is created and how much energy (fuel) is needed to create the charcoal. That is -- how much fuel it takes to MAKE this fuel.

This is an incomplete list, but it's representative of the kinds of things I get to do with students in different grades.

Photo: Emma Horning for Emmaus Patch