Science instruction in elementary school classrooms is frequently lacking in the United States. One factor that impacts the amount and quality of science instruction is teacher attitudes toward science. The Earth Science Mini-Lesson Project is a strategic program created to help improve preservice elementary school teachers' attitudes toward science in a one-semester college class. Students participating in this project create earth science mini-lessons on topics taken from the Utah Core Curriculum Standards and teach them to elementary students at a local Title I grade school. Attitude survey results from both semesters showed that this service-learning outreach program positively affected students' attitudes after minor adjustments to the project organization. This is a simple, inexpensive, yet effective, project that can be implemented in a one-semester college science course for preservice elementary teachers that can help improve their attitudes toward science.
A small faunule of silicified hexactinellid sponges and root tufts has been recovered from the upper Guadalupian Reef Trail Member of the Bell Canyon Formation, from the Patterson Hills, in the southwestern part of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in western Texas. Some demosponges from the type section of the Reef Trail Member, near the mouth of McKittrick Canyon on the front of the Guadalupe Mountains in the park, have also been documented. Included in the faunule from the Patterson Hills localities are the new amphidiscosid hexactinellid pelicasponge Trailospongia reischi n. gen. and sp., the questionable pelicaspongiid Hexirregularia nana n. gen. and sp., and the dictyospongiid hexactinellids Microstaura doliolum Finks, 1960, and Microstaurella minima n. gen. and sp., and Microstaurella parva n. gen. and sp. They are associated with specimens of the lyssacinosid brachiosponges Toomeyospongiella gigantia Rigby and Bell, 2005, Toomeyospongia modica n. sp., and Toomeyospongia minuta n. gen. and sp., and fragments of three different types of root tufts, termed Tufts 1, 3, and 4. Two specimens of the new cylindrical demosponge Mckittrickella pratti n. gen. and sp. are associated with Tuft 2 in the collection from the type section of the Reef Trail Member, and a third specimen was collected from the member in the Patterson Hills. These sponges from Localities 1-7 are the youngest Permian sponges known from the region, and possibly from North America.
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