An Internship As A Student Instructor At Sprout Up

In 2016 spring quarter I did an internship as a student instructor at Sprout Up. Sprout Up is a non-profit organization which provides free environmental eduction for first graders and second graders at local elementary school. It aims to foster interest in life science and to encourage a sustainable lifestyle. With weekly environmental lessons, Sprout Up wants to connect children to nature, teach them to appreciate the beauty of nature, and therefore direct them to make positive actions with nature. I have heard of Sprout Up about two years ago but I did not do it, in part due to I was not completely sure I wanted to pursue my career in this field. Sprout Up is actually my first internship at UC Santa Cruz and it is great one to get me†¦show more content†¦Our procedure often started with an introduction called â€Å"Awaken Enthusiasm†, where we asked the kids to have a review on what we learned last week and then asked them questions about our lesson this week, such as â€Å"Has anyone ever experienced†¦Ã¢â‚¬  or â€Å"Does anyone want to share†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . After that, we would break up into our natural teams and had discussion. The teacher of the class had divided the team and each instructor would have five or six kids in her team. Then the whole class would have an activity together, what we called â€Å"Direct Experience†, like planting peas, predator and prey game, and local food vs. long-distance food race game. Finally, we would pass out natural journals, which could be either a homework testing kids on today’s lesson, or drawing a poster with a slogan created by kids themselves. Skills LearnedProblems Encountered The most important skills I learned were no doubt better child management and more comprehensive interpretation of environmental concepts. Before this internship, especially with many concepts I had learned in high school and college classes, I could only repeat what the teachers had told me without adding my own understanding and interpretation. However, with this opportunity provided by Sprout Up, I was able to be a teacher and made myself understandable for