A small oriole's nest with Christmas tree icicles woven between the twigs hangs in the back of her classroom. In front, by her desk, is a wasps nest and a magpies nest, which is sitting between the branches of a short tree.
First-grade teacher Susan Frederickson climbed a tree to collect the "wasps house" - all in the name of science and education. She wanted to show her students different types of animal homes.Frederickson, who teaches at Wellsville Elementary School south of Logan, loves to see children think and learn. She was recently named the winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics. The award is given to one elementary teacher in each state by the National Science Foundation.
"I feel like every day in school I'm seeing a miracle," she said. "It's almost like you can see the gears going."
As students in her class discuss the differences between apples and pumpkins as part of a science unit on plants, they figure out dirt on the pumpkins' underside shows it grows on the ground.
"Do you know that means you're being investigators?" Fred-erickson asks excitedly. "When we're doing science we're always investigating." And that means thinking, guessing and discovering," she said.
"What happens if you guess wrong?" she asks her class.
"It doesn't matter," they respond in unison.
Children need to be exposed to the whole spectrum of science skills in order to get excited about it, Frederickson said, adding that these "science inquiry skills' are vital.
"I think we're going to find in the long run that thinking skills are more important than memorizing," she said. Frederickson believes so much information will be available in the future it will be necessary to really know how to think in order to sort through all of it. "If they miss those (skills) in first grade, they're going to have a hard time catching up."
Frederickson has been teaching at Wellsville Elementary 11 years and just "fell into" teaching science 10 years ago when each first-grade teacher took on a different subject that needed to be taught. She decided on science. "It just sort of evolved," she explained.
Her lessons include activities like making a cross-stitch for Mother's Day - a five-week project which teaches students plants can be used for art and gifts, (thread and cross-stitch material originally come from plants). In one of her experiments, the first-graders get to "pour air" to learn that it has mass.
Wellsville principal Clair Larkin said he nominated Frederickson for the national award and also for Utah Science Educator of Year in 1991 (which she also won) because "she's a very innovative, creative teacher. She has been one that hasn't been afraid to try something new."
Larkin was impressed by Frederickson's use of technology in the classroom - like using laser techniques in water - and her ability to use all kinds of resources to teach students. "She's just an extra-mile teacher," Larkin said. "It's really an honor for the school (to have Frederickson receive the award)."
As part of the award, the elementary school gets a $7,500 grant. The money will be used school-wide for something related to math and science, although exactly what that will be hasn't been decided yet, Larkin said.
"I appreciate the recognition," Frederickson said, "but I'm not the exception to the rule. Everyone does as much." Wellsville Elementary is a great place to teach, Frederickson said, and she enjoys working with the other teachers. She also said she wouldn't have tried for the award if it hadn't been for the $7,500 the school could receive if she won. Although her students are only 6 years old and learn science on a simple level, Frederickson said she's learning, too.
"Did you know when aphids are born they are all females?" she asks. Those females then have more females, she explained, which become full grown and have more females, and after nine generations or 45 days, there's something like a million aphids. It isn't until the last batch at the end of the fall that the males are born, she said. And those eggs stay dormant until the spring.
"I just learned that this year," she said. "There's nothing in the world like teaching first grade."