Science and Agriculture in Special Education

This teacher has initiated a program that takes students with special needs out of the classroom and into a farm environment where their maths and science learning can be put into a real-world context. In addition to developing maths and science skills, the students’ interaction with the animals supports the development of their personal and social skills. Another key outcome of this project is the mentoring amongst peers and collaborative learning with each other. The classroom activity, where the teacher uses experiments and interactive demonstrations to communicate complex scientific principles to the students provides another example of using a real world context.

The teacher is an award-winning educator, having won the School Science Educator of the Year in 2009, and the National Australian Museum Eureka Award for Science and Mathematics Teaching in 2011. The science and agriculture course she has designed is taught to students with special needs in years 8 through 13.