ED43B-0273 1340h
The Use of Poster Sessions as a Tool to Integrate Concepts in {\it Introduction to Environmental Science} Classes
For the past year we have required students within our Introduction to Environmental Science classes to present a poster during the final week of class. The course has no science or math prerequisites and serves a variety of students including majors in elementary education (70%) and environmental science (10%) and has an enrollment of around 60-80 students (enrollment currently limited by availability of classroom space). We have found the poster session to be an excellent avenue for students from diverse backgrounds to integrate concepts learned in the course and apply them to their chosen major. For example, majors in elementary education are encouraged to develop lessons plans or a {\it hands on} activity they can later use within their elementary classroom. All posters must be connected in some way to environmental issues in the El Paso/Juarez border community. In order to avoid {\it last minute} work on presentations, the students are required to select topics, search for initial references, and write abstracts for their posters as intermediate steps during the last 2 months of the course. Posters are presented in a special poster session where students rotate between roles as {\it presenters} and {\it evaluators}. Post-course assessments have shown that most students find the poster session helpful in learning to apply course concepts to situations outside of environmental science, especially within their chosen field of study. The major drawbacks to the poster format have been developing a consistent method to grade posters as well as the actual process of grading posters during the last week of classes.
ED43B-0274 1340h
DLESE Teaching Boxes and Beyond: A promising prototype for structuring web services to support concept- and inquiry-based STEM learning and interdisciplinary partnerships.
An exciting pilot program took place this summer, pioneering the development of Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) Teaching Boxes with the Univ. of CA. Berkeley Museum of Paleontology, SF State Univ., USGS and 7 middle/high school teachers from the San Francisco area. This session will share the DLESE Teaching Box concept, explain the pilot program, and explore the tremendous opportunities for expanding this notion to embrace interdisciplinary approaches to learning about the Earth in the undergraduate science and pre-service teaching arenas. A Teaching Box is a metaphor for an online assembly of interrelated learning concepts, digital resources, and cohesive narration that bridges the gap between discrete resources and understanding. Within a Teaching Box, an instructor or student can pick a topic and see the concepts that build an understanding of that topic, explore online resources that support learning of those concepts, and benefit from the narration (the glue) that weaves concepts, activities, and background information together into a complete teaching/learning story. In this session, we will demonstrate the emerging Teaching Box prototypes and explore how this platform may promote STEM learning by utilizing DLESE tools and services in ways that begin to blur traditional disciplinary boundaries, overcome limitations of discipline-specific vocabularies, and foster collaboration. We will show ways in which new DLESE Web Services could support learning in this highly contextualized environment. We will see glimpses of how learners and educators will be able to modify or create their own Teaching Boxes specific to a unit of study or course, and perhaps share them with the Earth Science Education community. We will see ways to stay abreast of current Earth events, emerging research, and real-time data and incorporate such dynamic information into one learning environment. Services will be described and demonstrated in the context of Teaching Boxes: - DLESE Web Services provide a programmatic interface that allows the Teaching Box (or any web page) to have the same DLESE search, bookmarking features, and data management that are found at the DLESE web site. - DLESE Smart Links are hyperlinks that can be created by anyone and implemented as easily as defining a specific query. Clicking a Smart Link displays a list of resources that corresponds to the specific query. We'll talk about how this service can help to bridge the gap between vocabularies and disciplines and the interesting possibilities it presents for contextualizing searches and building custom topical menus. - The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) service delivers online information immediately, and allows end-users to subscribe to receive regular news, events, and data on a given Teaching Box topic. This opens the door to event-based learning. - Strand Maps, developed by the AAAS, are diagrams of interconnected learning concepts across a range of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. The University of Colorado and its project partners are developing the Strand Map Service (SMS) to provide an interactive interface to interrelated learning goals, content knowledge, (including student misconceptions) and educational resources in the National Science Digital Library and DLESE.
http://www.dlese.org
ED43B-0275 1340h
Experiencing Geoscience: A Unique Graduate Student Role in Undergraduate Education
Many geoscience departments share a similar set of challenges that limit undergraduate and graduate training alike: shrinking undergraduate class enrollments and majors, a lack of classes that introduce laboratory and field-based methods of inquiry, and, as a result, a shortage of training opportunities for graduate students in the design and instruction of undergraduate classes. These obstacles are particularly acute for smaller colleges and universities in which undergraduate geoscience programs have been tailored to fulfill "general education" and "breadth" requirements. To address these challenges, the graduate students of Duke University's Earth and Ocean Sciences Department designed and co-taught an exciting, hands-on undergraduate class in the spring of 2004. The class was composed of three month-long modules in each of three major fields within geosciences: climate, geomorphology, and solid earth studies. Two to three graduate students volunteered to co-teach each module, which was focused on a short, directed research project, and resulted in a scientific paper or presentation. The class provided the participants with hard skills to conduct scientific inquiry in earth sciences and effectively communicate their findings. It also enhanced the teaching experience and portfolios of aspiring future faculty.
ED43B-0276 1340h
Earth System Science in a Nutshell: A Starting Point Module
"Earth System Science in a Nutshell" is a learning module describing an interdisciplinary approach for treating Earth as an integrated system. The module is one of twelve within the Starting Point project, an NSF-supported effort which explores the ability of on-line resources to catalyze improvements in undergraduate teaching. The Starting Point collection of modules integrate pedagogy with teaching resources to support a virtual community of educators teaching undergraduate entry-level geoscience, environmental science, or related courses. The Earth system science module outlines basic representations of the Earth system, and presents a series of short illustrated vignettes describing the Earth in space, the traditional air, water, land and life spheres, and the human dimension. Each section is linked to relevant online resources cataloged within the Starting Point Digital Library Collection, also linked to the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE). The module also identifies and summarizes additional learning resources by Earth system sphere and theme. In a final section, the module catalogs, summarizes and links to Earth system science courses being offered at colleges and universities across the country. "Earth System Science in a Nutshell" is designed as a quick overview of Earth as a system, for faculty or students, with ready links to resources and programs offering more depth. The module serves as a content resource and reference for the other sections of Starting Point, which offer additional ideas for teaching entry level geoscience courses. A parallel module, Designing an Earth System Course, offers strategies and materials for course design and presents several examples of Earth system science courses with different emphases, each based on a matrix approach that systematically looks at interactions among the different spheres within a particular content area.
http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/index.html
ED43B-0277 1340h
Diversity of Approaches to Structuring University-Based Earth System Science Education
Over the past quarter century, the "Earth system science" paradigm has emerged among the interdisciplinary science community, emphasizing interactions among components hitherto considered within separate disciplines: atmosphere (air); hydrosphere (water); biosphere (life); lithosphere (land); anthroposphere (human dimension); and exosphere (solar system and beyond). How should the next generation of Earth system scientists learn to contribute to this interdisciplinary endeavor? There is no one simple answer. The Earth System Science Education program, funded by NASA, has addressed this question by supporting faculty at U.S. universities who develop new courses, curricula and degree programs in their institutional contexts. This report demonstrates the diversity of approaches to structuring university-based Earth system science education, focusing on the 18 current grantees of the Earth System Science Education Program for the 21st Century (ESSE21). One of the most fundamental characteristics is the departmental structure for teaching Earth system science. The "home" departments of the Earth system science faculty range from Earth sciences and physics to agronomy and social work. A brand-new institution created an interdisciplinary Institute for Earth Systems Science and Policy without traditional "parent" departments. Some institutions create new degree programs as majors or as minors while others work within existing degree programs to add or revise courses. A university may also offer multiple strands, such as a degree in the Science of the Earth System and a degree in the Human Dimensions of the Earth System. Defining a career path is extremely important to students considering Earth system science programs and a major institutional challenge for all programs in Earth system science education. How will graduate programs assess prospective students? How will universities and government agencies assess prospective faculty and scientists? How will government agencies allocate funds to interdisciplinary Earth system science and technology? Finally, how should the Earth system science education community evolve?
http://esse21.usra.edu
ED43B-0278 1340h
A Data-enhanced On-line Learning Environment for Undergraduate Earth System Science Education
Earth system science (ESS) research often requires integrating, analyzing, and modeling with large amount of multi-disciplinary, multi-source geospatial data. Satellite remote sensing is one of the major sources of such data. Currently, NASA EOSDIS has archived more than three petabytes of Earth remote sensing data. Those data are essential for conducting ESS research. Therefore, training students on how to effectively use large amount of remote sensing data in ESS research is the essential part of their ESS education. However, currently most of undergraduate students have never been trained to handle the huge volume of available data because of lack of resources and suitable teaching technology at ESS colleges. In order to reduce this problem, we are developing a web-based geospatial information system, called GeoBrain, for providing a data-enhanced on-line learning and research environment for ESS education and research. The system makes petabytes of NASA EOS data and information easily accessible to higher-education users. The system allows users to dynamically and collaboratively develop interoperable, web-executable geospatial process and analysis modules and models, and run them on-line against any part of the peta-byte archives for getting back the customized information products rather than raw data. The system makes a data-enhanced ESS learning and research environment, backed by petabytes of NASA EOS data and unavailable to students and professors before, available to them at their desktops. In order to integrate this new learning environment into the undergraduate ESS teaching and research, a NASA EOS Higher Education Alliance (NEHEA), consisting of the GeoBrain development team led by GMU and a group of Earth science educators selected from an open RFP process, has been formed. NEHEA members are incorporating the data enhanced learning environment into their teaching and on-going research and will develop new courses for taking advantages of the environment. This paper presents the data-enhanced learning environment and discusses some initial experiences gained from NEHEA members on integrating the environment into undergraduate ESS education.
http://laits.gmu.edu
ED43B-0279 1340h
Creating Undergraduate Community Ambassadors of Earth System Science
A major challenge--and responsibility--facing scientists is the effective communication of complex scientific information to lay audiences. While this issue is important regardless of scientific discipline, conveying accurate information about earth system science (ESS) is particularly critical because: 1) ESS lies at the heart of formulating environmental policy from the local to global scale, 2) public interest is high with respect to many ESS topics (e.g. climate change), 3) ESS is inherently complex and uncertain, 4) ESS involves large spatial and temporal scales not routinely dealt with by the lay public, and 5) media reports regarding key ESS topics are often brief and lack the depth necessary to appropriately convey the scientific debate and consensus on a topic. As part of an effort to improve the communication of ESS-related information to non-scientists, we required undergraduate science and engineering students to prepare a detailed paper on some current aspect of ESS and then present this work to community groups. From 1998-2004, 46 students in 5 different ESS-related courses presented information to more than 20 different community groups in South Dakota and Colorado. The majority of students (75%) were apprehensive about the presentations prior to giving them, but after giving the presentations, 95% of the students indicated that they would consider giving similar community presentations in the future. In addition, community groups responded positively to the students; 100% of the community groups indicated that they would be willing to host more students giving these types of presentations. Incorporating this project in our undergraduate ESS classes provides valuable communication experiences to undergraduate science and engineering students and instills in them that knowledge transfer to the community is a worthy professional endeavor, increases the visibility of the college within the community, and represents a necessary and effective transfer of current ESS understanding from the realm of the scientist to that of the general public.
ED43B-0280 1340h
Advancing Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century: An Interdisciplinary Education Initiative for University Students
We have developed and are teaching an Earth System Science course for upper-level undergraduate and entry-level graduate students at the University of New Hampshire supported by funding from the NASA Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century, UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, and the UNH Teaching Excellence Program. We have designed the course around seven objectives based on student learning outcomes. These learning objectives span the range of Bloom's Taxonomy from knowledge and comprehension, through application and analysis, to synthesis and evaluation. Learning objectives are mapped onto each and every lecture and laboratory exercise. The lecture portion of the course includes background information with a focus on advanced concepts in Earth system science and inquiry based learning. The laboratory section has students build a series of basic energy balance models of the Earth with increasing complexity using box models and Stellac computer software. Examples of additional applications of Earth system science will be provided to students and others in the UNH community via the Environmental Science Seminar Series which will feature five guest lecturers from NASA-Goddard. We have also developed a detailed plan for both formative and summative assessment of student learning which includes weekly classroom assessments, concept mapping, student interviews at the beginning and end of the course, formal student evaluations, as well as exams, papers, and homework exercises.
ED43B-0281 1340h
Methods used for Undergraduate Education at the University of Alaska Southeast Environmental Sciences Program
The Environmental Science Program at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, Alaska utilizes our unique outdoor field experience opportunities as part of both the classroom experience and our undergraduate research component. This presentation focuses on our successes in taking advantage of our surrounding environment in the maritime rainforest of the Alaska panhandle to enhance our undergraduate program. We will highlight some of our most successful undergraduate experiences, which include a snow pack monitoring site at our local ski area, glacier mass balance studies on the Mendenhall Glacier, glacial geology studies in Glacier Bay National Park, and the development of wireless networks to monitor bats. We will describe methods we have used to integrate the field opportunities into our program.
http://uas.alaska.edu/envs/
ED43B-0282 1340h
Satellite Drag and Space Weather Simulations for Undergraduates
We have developed a set of simulation-laboratories that allow undergraduate students to examine drag effects on satellites in low earth orbit. The simulation output includes height, velocity, drag force and energy profiles. Further, we have incorporated features that allow students to explore the effects of space weather (solar and geomagnetic) variability on the orbital profiles. We will demonstrate a new feature of the simulation that allows students to visualize model-derived and storm-time upper atmosphere conditions that affect satellite drag. These simulations are available as spreadsheets or standard programming applications in MS EXCEL, MATLAB and IDL. Our simulations include comparisons to the STARSHINE I-III satellite orbital decay profiles. We will discuss how these simulations can be used in a variety of classroom and independent study modes.
ED43B-0283 1340h
Geo-myths and Misconceptions: Students' Alternate Views of How Our World Works
Obviously students do not enter our classrooms as blank slates, prepared to accept our elegant constructions of how the world works. They already have well established, often surprisingly complex, ideas of their world that, even if erroneous, do serve to satisfactorily explain many phenomena. These ideas are remarkably hardy and, when challenged, tend to adapt or mutate more readily than to go extinct. Some of these misconceptions have a remarkable ancestry, stretching back to our society's early scientific cosmologies and may be very deeply embedded, and broadly disseminated, in our society. Others are clearly the product of more recent knowledge, but knowledge that has been misinterpreted or misapplied in unexpected ways. As long as instructors are aware of these misconceptions, they can be challenged, and with some success eliminated or replaced. Once students experience the fact that their interpretations do not adequately explain the geologic phenomena before them, they may be more willing to entertain a new concept. If they then are provided new, more useful ideas and given multiple experiences applying those ideas, then they are more likely to actually give up their misconceptions and use the new ideas in the future. The greatest problems occur when instructors are simply unaware of a misconception's existence. Often the gulf between instructors' and students' knowledge of the subject matter is so great that the instructors' familiarity becomes a liability. They cannot conceive of some ideas that appear intuitive from their students' perspective, so these misconceptions are never challenged and survive instruction intact. More importantly, students use their misconceptions to interpret other ideas presented in a course. The result is usually a strange amalgam of old and new ideas. The students make new ideas "fit" with their original misconceptions and often reject ideas they see as being contrary to their initial beliefs. In a worse case scenario, course instruction may actually appear to support their misconceptions, actively embedding them even more solidly within the students' world view. As examples, up to a fifth of incoming students at our University assume that magma comes from the Earth's liquid outer core. In some classes, up to 40% of the students believe that the presence of seawater is necessary for the formation of basalt. If we are not aware of the existence of these startlingly widespread notions, we will remain incapable of correcting them. This work was partially supported by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education.