HR: 1340h
AN: ED23A-0965    [Abstracts]
TI: Environmental Change Science Literacy Through Writing: Successes in an Undergraduate Writing and Composition Course
AU: * Small, J D
EM: jsmall@es.ucsc.edu
AF: University of California - Santa Cruz, Earth and Planetary Sciences 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, United States
AB: Basic science literacy, especially with regards to environmental change science, is often lacking in traditional K- 12 and undergraduate education. This generally leads to broad misconceptions based on distorted presentations of science in the media. Current educational research suggests that the teaching and learning of science can happen in many ways, whether it is through lectures, labs, research, inquiry or informal learning activities. This study was motivated by the desire to investigate the ability to teach environmental change science content in the non-traditional mode of an undergraduate composition and writing course. This technique offers educators another option for the integration of climate and environmental change material into their curriculum. The study incorporates the assessment and evaluation of student writing, in-class participation and student self- evaluations from "Writing about Change: Global Environmental Change and Society" a writing course that fulfils a requirement to graduate from the University of California - Santa Cruz. The course was taught Winter Quarter 2007 with a total of 28 days of instruction and the participation of 20 undergraduate students. The overarching goals of this study can be broadly classified as attitudinal, skills development and content retention. This study was designed to address three broad questions related to the above broad goals: i) Did students leave the class more comfortable and confident with environmental change issues and content? ii) Did students develop skills that are useful for reading and writing about scientific material? iii) What did students learn (retain): more general concepts or specific facts regarding climate and environmental change? Preliminary analysis and coding of student work clearly show that students were successful in developing skills for understanding and utilizing scientific information via writing and making thoughtful judgments regarding the reliability of environmental change science in various media. More detailed analysis of student work and responses are necessary in order to fully evaluate the depth and breadth of student understanding and retention of scientific content and concepts.
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
DE: 0825 Teaching methods
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting