David Auerbach

"The Living Laboratory" is Auerbach's winning program designed for students to learn about and plan animal life by creating and caring for small ecosystems. With the addition of several glass terrariums, seventh-grade science students will research how to create self-contained environments and then populate their mini-ecosystems with compatible insects, crustaceans, reptiles or amphibians. They will be required to take care of the living creatures throughout the school year. The students' jobs will be to, as a team, provide clean and healthy environments for the organisms, along with water and food on a daily basis. The goal is to replace dissections with a project that promotes life in the laboratory. In the end, each student will be able to set up and maintain a small ecosystem, prepare documents describing the living organisms and list their living requirements. A log will be created containing information about their ecosystem's environment. Auerbach, the school's science department chair, lives in Canaan.