Alisa Smits

FREMONT - Alisa Smits, life science teacher at Fremont Middle School, recently received the Maitland P. Simmons Memorial Award for New Teachers.

This week, Alisa Smits, life science teacher at Fremont Middle School, will help 108 seventh-graders dissect sheep eyes into various parts - cornea, lens, retina and all.

Ever the thrifty teacher, Smits uses ovine orbs.

"They're cheaper than cow eyes," she said."You do what you can."

Evidently, Smits can do a lot.

Now in her third year at FMS, she recently received the Maitland P. Simmons Memorial Award for New Teachers.
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From that endowment, several scholarships are now drawn, including the national teaching award won by Smits.

Fremont Middle School life science teacher Alisa Smits, center, speaks with seventh-graders about the great outdoors.Smits, now in her third year at FMS, recently won the Maitland P. Simmons Memorial Award for New Teachers. - Chris Bristol/Fremont Tribune
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"It was great," said Smits."The exhibits, the hands-on technology.I brought home lots of ideas to incorporate in the classroom."

And outside the classroom, too, it seems.

Monday afternoon found Smits and her students examining square-meter areas outside the FMS building.Each student has been assigned a space, Smits said, to observe existing flora now and predict what will happen later.

"Some of these kids don't really know how things grow," she said, noting students had suggested, upon examination, that the brown and dried weeds would turn green again.

Smits hopes to use the enthusiasm and skill that earned her the Simmons award to broaden the scope of her students' scientific knowledge.

"I've always loved school," she said.
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Lake or no lake, Smits has unique ways of teaching her life science classes.
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As a life science teacher, Smits said she doesn't get to use what she calls the "toys and explosions" employed by chemistry and physics instructors.

But she does have a plan to make the seed project especially interesting.

This week, Alisa Smits, life science teacher at Fremont Middle School, will help 108 seventh-graders dissect sheep eyes into various parts â€" cornea, lens, ...

This week, Alisa Smits, life science teacher at Fremont Middle School, will help 108 seventh graders dissect sheep eyes into various parts cornea, lens, retina and all ...

About 50 Fremont Middle School students, along with science teachers, Bill Saeger, Alisa Smits, Dee Kohl, Diane Johnson and supervisors, cleaned up the construction debris, installed two park rule signs and traffic control pole and cable at the end of the parking lot.

Middle School students, along with science teacher Alisa Smits, cleaned up park and lake.

Teachers Diane Johnson, Dee Kohl and Alisa Smits, representing the FMS science department, presented accounts of completed work and future plans at the Monday meeting of the Fremont Public Schools board of education, noting they have entered the project in the Environmental Excellence competition, but have yet to hear whether they are winners.