HR: 0800h
AN: ED21A-0059    [Abstracts]
TI: High School and Undergraduate Participation in Field Experiments as a Means of Teaching Global Change Science
AU: * Chiariello, N R
EM: nonajrbp@stanford.edu
AF: Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, 4001 Sand Hill Rd., Woodside, CA 94062 United States
AU: Gomez, W
EM: bgomez1@stanford.edu
AF: Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, 4001 Sand Hill Rd., Woodside, CA 94062 United States
AU: Field, C B
EM: cfield@globalecology.stanford.edu
AF: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 260 Panama St., Stanford, CA 94305 United States
AB: Field experiments offer unique opportunities to teach undergraduates and high school students many of the principles and methods of global change science. The Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment (JRGCE) studies the response of California grassland to four environmental factors changing globally, and has emphasized a tiered program of outreach that combines curriculum supplements, demonstration tours, sample data sets, and internship opportunities. The program emphasizes translating a complex environmental question into an experiment. High school outreach by the JRGCE has focused on the environmental studies classes at a nearby public high school. Students begin with background material via a website and in-class sessions that focus on global and regional changes in the four environmental factors incorporated in the experiment: warming, elevated CO$_{2}$, increased precipitation, and nitrogen deposition. Each class also visits the experiment to see and discuss many aspects of experimental design: environmental heterogeneity, the importance of replication and randomization, the role of experimental controls, the possibility of experimental artifacts, the importance of minimally disruptive measurements, and the complexity of ecosystems and their responses to experimental treatments. These demonstration tours also emphasize hands-on measurements to illustrate how ecosystem responses to global change are quantified across a wide range of mechanisms. Finally, students use data from the experiment to test for effects of the treatments. For undergraduate classes, outreach focuses on either broad-based or more specialized demonstration tours to support their already well-developed curriculum. A few strongly interested high school students and undergraduates also conduct studies within the JRGCE under the supervision of a graduate student, postdoc, or professor. These educational activities depend crucially on three factors: 1) involvement of many members of the experiment team so that demonstration tours can be subdivided into small groups, 2) communication skills of dedicated volunteers to create and implement a broad set of educational materials, and 3) collaboration with participating teachers so that the activities merge with their curriculum. Feedback from students suggests that the outreach has been most successful when small groups of students are in the field with volunteers or researchers who engage them in well-crafted thought experiments or hands-on measurements.
DE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty
DE: 6600 PUBLIC ISSUES
DE: 6605 Education
DE: 6620 Science policy
DE: 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE (New category)
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting