posted by:
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Richard Dinko
on August 30, 1999
at 11:15AM
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subject:
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Real World Earth Science, etc?
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In response to Linda's question about AGI, etc.
AGI (American Geological Institute) is finalizing a secondary curricular package called EarthComm which focuses on the study of earth science from a local perspective. We are part of the piloting right now and we like what we see so far.
AGI also developed a middle school curriculum originally called EarthWorks (the name may change). It was in some form of field testing last year. It was going to be published by Carolina but they are now not going to publish it. I believe "It's About Time Publishing" (publishers of Active Physics) is going to carry it now. They are publishing the EarthComm materials for sure and I heard they were going to pick up the middle school materials as well. We do not know much about them but look forward to reviewing the materials.
In our county we are weak in real world earth science experiences in our schools. Many use the Earth Systems approach but we are still weak in the geology component. We are looking for a way to use "understanding our local area" to drive more of the investigations. Some of our schools will use the middle school FOSS unit- but they still want more emphasis on our local area. Some use FAST (Foundational Approaches in Science Teaching) developed by the Curriculum Research & Development Group of the University of Hawaii. They use the "Local Environment" materials and locve it. Our problem is the local application portion requires great teacher effort. They have to be willing to investigate their area- it is not in the book! We really need to network better between teachers to avoid duplicating effort in identifying resources and developing the supplemental materials often needed when you "look locally." As a result, many schools shy away from the local aspect due to time and resource availability. We are working on it. There are numerous interdisciplinary ties in this content area.
Mentioned in the last post, we also use the GLOBE program (http://www.globe.gov). It has been very valuable to us as a tool to supplement any curriculum by introducing local environmental monitoring/understanding and facilitating the reporting of data really used by scientists. It is flexible to be used K-12. This isn't just canned labs where the actual numerical data is rather useless in the end- the kids are studying their local environment by following protocols developed by scientists and reporting their data for those scientists to use. The students can call up data from other sites (there are over 7000 GLOBE schools in 70 countries) and look at trends in data based on location or time. Students all of a sudden take things more seriously knowing this data will be used for real. It also has a neat remoote sensing piece where students conduct ground cover verification of the actual satellite image for their area. We are pretty new in this, but looking forward to the implications.
We also compact local dollars (district Eisenhower, local foundation grants, other grants, etc) for equipment purchase which can be borrowed by teachers. It is kind of like the kit concept of a regional distribution center, but we are doing it with scientific equipment. We provide complete class sets of equipment to carry out all the GLOBE protocols (water testing, soil testing, GPS units, laptops, digital cameras, etc), as well as provide other equipment (really high quality balances, microscopes, calculators, CBL's, probes, etc). We have some real high end stuff (electrophoresis units, gas chromatographs, HPLC's, nuclear scalars, melting point units, etc) for secondary school use (we serve 18 high schools) and allow teachers/students to borrow it for use in individual investigations for science fairs, research/team projects, etc. Our goal is to foster "depth of understanding" by providing the equipment needed to carry out some of the investigations in the exemplary materials or to offer support for extensions and individual investigation. We work with college personnel in designing teacher training and application. Local industry helps us spec the equipment to match what they use and helps with applications. It is a neat "real world" piece.
Our goal is to provide the tools needed for the true depth of understanding which comes from experimenting and investigating. We do not want to see schools have to buy expensive equipment which is used only a few days a year. We can borrow the basic elements of the kit distribution center for non kit based middle school materials and develop our own local materials and resources to share between schools. I think as we transition to middle school and high school, the distribution centers will look more like equipment warehouses- offering flexible choice to teachers and students to acquire tools necessary to carry out the investigations in the exemplary curriculum.
This also has great implications for teacher ownership- when they play an active role in designing the innovation.
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