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Teachers from the Toledo and Springfield Local school districts measured the sun's shadow yesterday and used flashlights to imitate the action of the sun. In a few weeks or months, they'll be doing the same thing with their sixth-grade pupils.

More than 300 teachers from the two districts are attending a series of two-week summer institutes at the University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University to learn more about hands-on science experiments. Its the start of a five-year initiative to upgrade the teaching of science in area public schools.

TAPESTRIES stands for Toledo Area Partnership in Education: Support Teachers as Resources to Improve Elementary Science. The program is paid for by a $5.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The two school districts and the two universities will contribute about $8.6 million in local funds over five years.

In addition to training all elementary teachers in the new hands-on curriculum, the grant will train 16 science support teachers to assist their colleagues.

Dr. Charlene Czerniak, a UT education professor who led the effort to land the grant along with Dr. Jodi Haney at BGSU, said the training fills a need. The school district recently bought elementary science curriculums that use activity kits rather than textbooks.

Dr. Czerniak said many teachers in the primary grades are uncomfortable with teaching science. As a result, many of the science kits bought last year are underused. "A lot of elementary teachers are more into reading and language arts," Dr. Czerniak said. "A lot are just plain nervous about it."

In Toledo, each grade level has four kits. For the sixth grade, the kits are Measuring Time, Levers and Pulleys, Mixtures and Solutions, and Experimenting with Plants. Teachers studying the Measuring Time lesson went outside to practice with toy sundials.

In the classroom, they used flashlights to imitate the sun and predict how shadows change as the light source or the surface on which the shadow is cast changes location. Students will use charts and graphs as part of the course.

The kits are designed to help children discover scientific principles for themselves, under the teacher's guidance. "This gives them the chance to actually do activities and see what theyare learning as opposed to just reading about it," Andrea Milner, a sixth-grade teacher at Glenwood Elementary School in Toledo, said. "Every student does have an involvement in every activity."

Joyce Lewis, a special-education teacher at Pickett elementary and one of the 15 Toledo support teachers, predicted that science will come alive for students. "Kids now are visual learners," Miss Lewis said. "Actually putting their hands on it will mean a little more than me or any other teacher standing up there and telling them what works."

The goal of the five-year grant is to give every teacher in both school districts the opportunity to receive the training. Teachers attending the day-long, two-week sessions at UT and BGSU will be paid a $500 stipend and are eligible for master's degree credit.

Dr. Andrew Jorgensen, an associate chemistry professor at UT who is teaching the science behind the activities, said the shift to hands-on learning will begin to rectify what he believes is a gap in the knowledge level of incoming college students.

"They're clearly not getting enough lab time," he said. "This is just a wonderful partnership. Everybody wins. Teachers are coming out of here much more comfortable with the scientific process."