HR: 14:40h
AN: ED43A-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Graduate Student and High School Teacher Partnerships Implementing Inquiry-Based Lessons in Earth Science
AU: * Smith, M A
EM: Melissa.smith@unh.edu
AF: Department of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire, 121 James Hall, Durham, NH 03824, United States
AU: Preston, L
EM: lleep05@yahoo.com
AF: Salem High School, 44 Geremonty Drive, Salem, NH 03079, United States
AU: Graham, K
EM: Karen.Graham@unh.edu
AF: Joan and James Leitzel Center for Mathematics, Science, and Engineering Education, University of New Hampshire, 138 Parsons Hall, 23 College Road, Durham, NH 03824, United States
AB: Partnering science graduate students with high school teachers in their classroom is a mutually beneficial relationship. Graduate students who may become future university level faculty are exposed to teaching, classroom management, outreach scholarship, and managing time between teaching and research. Teachers benefit by having ready access to knowledgeable scientists, a link to university resources, and an additional adult in the classroom. Partnerships in Research Opportunities to Benefit Education (PROBE), a recent NSF funded GK-12 initiative, formed partnerships between science and math graduate students from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and local high school science teachers. A primary goal of this program was to promote inquiry-based science lessons. The teacher-graduate student teams worked together approximately twenty hours per week on researching, preparing, and implementing new lessons and supervising student-led projects. Several new inquiry-based activities in Geology and Astronomy were developed as a result of collaboration between an Earth Science graduate student and high school teacher. For example, a "fishbowl" activity was very successful in sparking a classroom discussion about how minerals are used in industrial materials. The class then went on to research how to make their own paint using minerals. This activity provided a capstone project at the end of the unit about minerals, and made real world connections to the subject. A more involved geology lesson was developed focusing on the currently popular interest in forensics. Students were assigned with researching how geology can play an important part in solving a crime. When they understood the role of geologic concepts within the scope of the forensic world, they used techniques to solve their own "crime". Astronomy students were responsible for hosting and teaching middle school students about constellations, using a star- finder, and operating an interactive planetarium computer program. In order to successfully convey this information to the younger students, the high school students had to learn their material well. This model of pairing graduate students with science teachers is continuing as a component of the Transforming Earth System Science Education (TESSE) program.
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
DE: 0825 Teaching methods
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting