A method that’s more than scientific

Sitting with a group of students around a classroom table, UM-Dearborn junior Aidan Asher discusses which native plants would be good for a pollinator garden, the right soil composition and the amount of water needed.

“We’re deciding what plants would grow best around here, look nice and need the least amount of maintenance — all while helping the pollinator population,” says Asher, a secondary education major. It’s a topic that’s discussed in university nature centers like UM-Dearborn Environmental Interpretive Center or UM-Ann Arbor’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens. But Asher is in a Garden City Middle School science classroom — and the students he’s interacting with are seventh and eighth graders. 

In teacher Shelley Lesko’s Science in Action class, Asher — who would like to become a STEM-focused high school teacher — helps steer the conversation around a hands-on project where students are designing a native plant garden that will beautify the front of the school, as well as provide a habitat for bees, butterflies and other insects.

“Looking up flowers is easy, but choosing them can be hard. I learned that there is a lot more to do about making a garden than it seems,” says seventh grader Jaci Harriman, who was sketching out her ideas on a large sheet of white easel pad paper. “Having people from UM-Dearborn here makes it fun. I look forward to this class every week.”

Asher is one of 30 students in Professor of Education Chris Burke’s Community-Based Education and Social Justice course. In the course, Burke’s students explore ways to help middle school students, like Harriman, connect to their classroom lessons by exploring topics important to them in their communities. “I want to help the bees and make the outside of my school look prettier,” Harriman says.

Every Thursday during the spring semester, the class meets at GCMS to work with the kids during their hour-long science class. Afterwards, the UM-Dearborn students head to a separate classroom where they reflect on how the class went, critique their teaching strategies and discuss how they could incorporate the day’s science lesson into other subjects like math or reading. For example, a separate math lesson could focus on calculating the planting area and what fits into that space.

Burke has run a version of this course for more than a decade and previously worked with Neinas Dual Language Learning Academy in Detroit. This is his third year working with Lesko at Garden City Middle School. Burke and Lesko connected through Wayne RESA after Burke let the regional agency know that his class was available to partner with local schools and Lesko took him up on the offer. 

“This is a way to work within our community and to help prepare our students when they have a classroom of their own,” Burke says. “This is hands-on learning for both sides. Instead of telling my students what to expect, we are in the classroom experiencing what we are talking about in class. When things are concrete, they become real – it’s not just a conversation.”

This particular junior high course — called Science and Action — was created by Lesko this year. “I created this elective class for seventh and eighth graders because I wanted to get them excited about science and see how the lessons we are learning are important in our everyday lives,” she says. “With its hands-on nature, I especially appreciated the idea of having multiple teacher figures in the classroom to work with my students. We are able to cover a lot of ground with Chris’ class here and my students really enjoy the time they have with the college students. I can see that some of these college students will make great classroom teachers.” Lesko is familiar with the quality of a UM-Dearborn education. Her daughter Molly Lesko is a 2024 alum.

Lesko’s other science-focused classes worked with Burke’s students in previous years. They toured UM-Dearborn’s Environmental Interpretive Center to learn about the impacts of invasive plants and they made paper from those plants. They’ve also built picnic tables and “little library” stands to encourage book recycling and outdoor reading, and experimented with water quality testing while discussing the importance of clean water. 

During each science class, Lesko and Burke involve the students in a hands-on project, which the students vote for. This term, they decided between creating a garden or designing a recyclable lunch tray. “It was so awesome seeing how engaged the students were during the initial debate on what project they were going to do. Prior to choosing, we discussed how to get information to defend their points,” Asher says. “The fact they were given a choice in the project got them very invested in it.”

The pollinator garden won out. So far, the class has learned about native species plants, garden maintenance and the role of pollinators in plant growth and food production. Science is eighth grader Caleb Smith’s favorite subject — and he’s especially interested in helping the bees. “We need bees. If you don’t have bees, we have less life on Earth. And if we have less life on Earth, I might not be able to do science,” he says.

As Burke and Lesko check in with each middle-school group led by Burke’s students, they see how passionate the kids are about the project. “This is what I hoped for when I created the class. I wanted students to be excited to learn about science,” Lesko says. “It’s also important, starting at a young age, for people to understand how our actions affect the world around us. Doing things like creating a pollinator garden shows us how we can help.”

As Asher talks with his students about human-caused environmental impacts, like how pollution harms the Earth’s natural resources, one jokes that he doesn’t care. Asher then asks about the student’s hobbies. When the student responds that he likes to raft with his family and go swimming, Asher points out that you need clean water for that. “Fair point,” the eighth grader says.

Asher says it’s important, when teaching, to put the lessons in the context of what students already know. “Sometimes we aren’t sure how things apply to us,” he says. “As teachers, our job is to build bridges that they don’t have yet.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury, Photos by Michigan Photography