Melanie Gertley

Year: 2008 – Province: Manitoba

Certificate of Excellence Recipients

School: West Kildonan Collegiate
1874 Main Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R2V 2A6

Principal: Gerry Corr
School Telephone: 204-339-6959
School Fax: 204-334-7116
School Email: scott.wouters@lpsd.ca
School Website: www.7oaks.org/site/westkildonan/community.aspx
Subjects and Grades Taught: Science, biology and chemistry in Grades 10 to 12

Teaching Approach

• Create learning opportunities that will captivate students' curiosity.
• Connect science to students' lives by drawing out its social aspects.

Outstanding Achievements

• Created the Hamlet CSI project, which features a crime scene from the play's conclusion. Project will involve a police forensics expert. Students investigate and hold a trial using the evidence they collect from the "crime scene" together with psychological evidence from the play.
• Created the WKCI SCUBA Documentary a cross-curricular project that allows chemistry, biology, consumer math and information technology students to learn SCUBA basics, complete underwater and corresponding land experiments, and develop skills with information and communications technology.
• Worked with a middle school teacher to create The Seven Oaks Curriculum Cooperative, a program to ease the social and academic transition from middle to senior years through peer mentoring and cross-curricular activities. The program now includes seven schools.
• Guided students as they ran promotional campaigns to encourage blood donation. Similar projects have included campaigns to reduce tobacco use and a study of how students can make houses that are friendlier to the environment.
• Earned six Innovator Grants from the Science Teachers Association of Manitoba.

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