56°

The students in Jennifer Thompson's kindergarten and first-grade class at Gastineau Elementary School must feel overburdened by household chores.

Asked to come up with ideas for a new invention in class Thursday, many said they'd like to invent a look-alike robot that can take their place to clean up their room or go to school if they didn't want to.

"All I have to do is hide in my closet," first-grader Catherine Marks said. The drawing of her robot came complete with a parent-appeasing text bubble that said: "OK, Mom."

After Thompson's students drew what their new inventions would look like, they sat around in a circle and shared their ideas. It's a lesson on how to work in groups and come up with inventive ideas, Thompson said, that will pay off soon when kids team up and build a model of a leprechaun trap in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

Having students make traps for mythical Irish creatures is one example of a way to produce critical, creative thinkers who will have an interest in science for at least the rest of their educational careers, the teacher said.

Thompson's teaching efforts haven't gone unnoticed. She's won a handful of awards, including a 2006 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

She received the 2006 Outstanding Early Childhood Practitioner award by the National Association for Early Childhood Teacher Educators for working with both university-level and primary-school-age children. And she won the 2007 Sylvia Shugrue Award for Elementary School Teachers, sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association, for an interdisciplinary, inquiry-based lesson plan.

She said elementary school aged kids need as much time as possible to "mess about" so that "they come into middle school and high school with the chance to see why they are learning what they are learning."

Thompson said the Juneau School District has done a good job in recent years of teaching the early science curriculum in a more hands-on way, but she said she's concerned with the overall educational trend of focusing on testing rather than broadening students' experiences.

"We want big thinkers," Thompson said. "We don't want kids to just memorize the textbooks."

Thompson makes sure her students have plenty of chances to learn about science in hands-on way. Recently the kids made a maze for Gary, the class guinea pig, and timed how long it took him to find to the exit and corresponding piece of award lettuce.

Thompson said her teaching methods aren't anything extraordinary, but an extension of her student's "total engagement with their world."

"They are natural young scientists," Thompson said.

• Contact reporter Alan Suderman at 523-2268 or alan.suderman@juneauempire.com.