HR: 11:50h
AN: ED42A-07    [Abstracts]
TI: EarthLabs - Investigating Hurricanes: Earth's Meteorological Monsters
AU: * McDaris, J R
EM: jmcdaris@carleton.edu
AF: Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College 1 N. College St., Northfield, MN 55057, United States
AU: Dahlman, L
EM: luann_dahlman@terc.edu
AF: Center for Earth and Space Science Education, TERC 2067 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140, United States
AU: Barstow, D
EM: dan_barstow@terc.edu
AF: Center for Earth and Space Science Education, TERC 2067 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140, United States
AB: Earth science is one of the most important tools that the global community needs to address the pressing environmental, social, and economic issues of our time. While, at times considered a second-rate science at the high school level, it is currently undergoing a major revolution in the depth of content and pedagogical vitality. As part of this revolution, labs in Earth science courses need to shift their focus from cookbook-like activities with known outcomes to open-ended investigations that challenge students to think, explore and apply their learning. We need to establish a new model for Earth science as a rigorous lab science in policy, perception, and reality. As a concerted response to this need, five states, a coalition of scientists and educators, and an experienced curriculum team are creating a national model for a lab-based high school Earth science course named EarthLabs. This lab course will comply with the National Science Education Standards as well as the states' curriculum frameworks. The content will focus on Earth system science and environmental literacy. The lab experiences will feature a combination of field work, classroom experiments, and computer access to data and visualizations, and demonstrate the rigor and depth of a true lab course. The effort is being funded by NOAA's Environmental Literacy program. One of the prototype units of the course is Investigating Hurricanes. Hurricanes are phenomena which have tremendous impact on humanity and the resources we use. They are also the result of complex interacting Earth systems, making them perfect objects for rigorous investigation of many concepts commonly covered in Earth science courses, such as meteorology, climate, and global wind circulation. Students are able to use the same data sets, analysis tools, and research techniques that scientists employ in their research, yielding truly authentic learning opportunities. This month-long integrated unit uses hurricanes as the story line by which students investigate the different interactions involved in hurricane generation, steering, and intensification. Students analyze a variety of visualization resources looking for patterns in occurrence and to develop an understanding of hurricane structure. They download archived data about past hurricanes and produce temporal and spatial plots to discover patterns in hurricane life cycles. They investigate the relationship between hurricane wind speed and factors such as barometric pressure and sea surface temperature by conducting spreadsheet analyses on archived data. They also conduct hands-on laboratory experiments in order to understand the physical processes that underpin energy transfer in convection, condensation, and latent heat. These activities highlight Earth science as a vital, rich, invigorating course, employing state-of-the-art technologies and in-depth labs with high relevance for our daily lives and the future.
UR: http://serc.carleton.edu/earthlabs/index.html
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0845 Instructional tools
DE: 3374 Tropical meteorology
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting