Learning Technologies which further the goals of Environmental Education

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Learning Technologies which further the goals of
Environmental Education

• Anna Switzer
• University of Michigan
• Pre-candidate in Science Education

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My background

• B.A. in Physics
• Taught high school Physics and Math
• Instructed Outward Bound courses in NC Mountains,
  FL Everglades, and Mexico
• M.S. in Marine Science
• Taught on board oceanography school-ship program
• Taught 6th graders in museum program focused on
  water quality
• Taught college-level Earth Science

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My goal

• To see EE more mainstreamed in schools
• However, no tragedies before the 6th grade.
  (Sobel, 1995)
• right lessons at the right times
• age 3-7 develop empathy
• age 7-11 exploration
• age 11-up social action

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EE in Schools is critical

• Ideally, children will be exposed early and often
  to the natural world
• However, with less time spent outside (e.g.
  Nature Deficit Disorder), we need to take
  advantage of other learning opportunities
• Schools are one place where kids pick up on
  important aspects of the culture

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Introducing

• Project FLOW (Fisheries Learning on the Web)
• Model-It (as part of curricula from hi-ce, UofM)
• Worldwatcher (as part of curriculum from
  Northwestern)
• Making Thinking Visible (might exist someday)

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Project FLOW

• Designed by Michigan Sea Grant College Program
• 15 lessons on www
• For 4th-8th grade
• Focused on Great Lakes
• Each lesson aligned with state and national
  standards/benchmarks
• Assessment suggestions provided

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Concept Development

• What do classroom teachers need to be successful
  in bringing environmental education into the
  classroom?
• Lessons can be used independently, but build upon
  each other if used in sequence.
• Enhance existing content (inquiry-based lessons
  -) rather than creating new materials

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• Three primary units -
• covering 3 of 12 critical areas of need as
  identified
• by the
• Great Lakes Fisheries Trust

Introduced species (Food Web)
Fisheries and Sustainability (Water)
Fisheries and Stewardship
(Fish)
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Standards and Benchmarks

• Relevant sections from educational publications
  were combed for applicable science and social
  studies content standards, benchmarks and
  guidelines, including
• Michigan Curriculum Framework
• National Science Education Standards
• American Association for the Advancement of
  Science
• North American Association of Environmental
  Education
• National Council for the Social Studies

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Standards and Benchmarks Example
C4 - 1, from NSES (National Science Education
Standards) A population consists of all
individuals of a species that occur together at a
given place and time. All populations living
together and the physical factors with which they
interact compose an ecosystem.
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Suggestions for Assessment provided
Learning Objective. Example describe the
difference between herbivores,
carnivores, and producers. Student Performance.
Example Define herbivore, carnivore and
producer. Recommended Points. Example 1 point
for each definition above (herbivore,
carnivore and producer).
We recommend more points for questions which
require thinking higher on the pyramid (Blooms
taxonomy)
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FLOW Summary

• Expected Outcomes and Impacts
• More teachers will have access to high-quality
  Great Lakes educational materials for use with
  their students.
• By aligning these materials with national and
  state standards teachers will be able to more
  easily incorporate aquatic science material into
  their existing science curriculum.

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Model-It

• Designed by education researchers/specialists at
  U of Michigan
• Comes in several flavors to match middle-school
  science curricula
• Helps students construct understanding
• Designed specifically for learners who are
  unfamiliar with dynamic modeling and lack
  mathematical or symbol manipulation skills

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Generally, students have unrelated tid-bits of
knowledge
pollution
watershed
Water in the faucet
fish
health
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Deep and useful understanding requires that ideas
are linked together
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With Model-It

• Students Build Dynamic Qualitative Models to help
  answer the driving questions
• What is the Quality of Water in Our River?
• What Affects the Quality of Air in My Community?
• How Can Good Friends Make You Sick?

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Value of Building Dynamic Models

• Cognitive tool
• Opportunities for students to engage in authentic
  scientific practices
• Allows students to build models of scientific
  phenomena a common tool of the trade
• Active Construction of Understanding
• Externalization of their thinking
• Show Complexity
• Make explanations, predictions, tests and
  refinements
• Make links between relationships

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Models consist of

• -objects - things in the system being modeled,
  
• -variables - measurable attributes of objects,
  and
• -relationships between variables.

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Students PLAN,
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BUILD,
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and TEST
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Analysis

• Does the model work as you thought it would?
• Does the relationship you observed make sense?
• How do the parts of a watershed affect one
  another?
• Does the model help you answer the driving
  question?

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Adding complexity
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Worldwatcher

• Developed at Northwestern University
• Part of Investigations in Environmental Science
  A Case-Based Approach to the Study of
  Environmental Systems (year long for high
  school)
• Cases all based on the conflict between growing
  human population and decreasing natural resources
• Based on Learning for Use Model
• Motivate
• Construct
• orgranize

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Scope and Sequence

• Three major units
• Land-Use (8 weeks)
• Energy Generation (12 weeks)
• Water Resources (12 weeks)
• One open-ended unit
• Investigating the Local Environment
• (4 weeks interspersed)

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Role of Technology

• Visualize and Analyze Real-world Data (Arcview
  GIS)

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• Simulation of complex processes

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Activity

• Surface Temperatures

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Live demonstration with Worldwatcher
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Environmental Decision Making

• Help students understand the role of scientific
  evidence in decision-making and systematically
  integrate evidence and values in environmental
  decisions.
• The process
• Identify constraints
• Identify considerations
• Map consequences
• Identify stakeholders and effects
• Weighting (values)/Trade-offs

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Strengths of IES

• Ambitious cross-disciplinary content
• Case-based context that engages students
• Data analysis
• Technology
• Decision-making
• Support for teacher learning and development

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Making Thinking Visible

• Doesnt actually exist
• Combines technology and
• Concept mapping
• So that students thinking about complex issues
  will be made visible to the students and to the
  teachers in a timely manner

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Environmental Decision Making

• Complex Mixture of Domains (Science,
  Economics, Politics, Values)
• No right answer
• It would be powerful to understand how students
  bring these domains together

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Can do so using Conceptual Cognitive Concept
Mapping (3CM) (Kearney and Kaplan, 1997)

• Assumed to both model external environments and
  provide the foundation for much of human thought
  (Kearney, 1997)
• Allows for exploration of a topic in the process
  of externalizing ones perspective
• But, very time intensive process.

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WORD MENU
This is the active space for creating concept
maps about a topic.
cities
farms
fish
health
lakes
mountains
plants
rivers
wetlands
pollution
recreation
people
waterfaucet
Run-off
cars
animals
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WORD MENU
mountains
cities
wetlands
fish
farms
lakes
This person has begun to group the terms by
clicking and dragging them into the active space
plants
rivers
pollution
recreation
people
waterfaucet
health
Run-off
cars
animals
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WORD MENU
lakes
rivers
fish
mountains
animals
cities
wetlands
plants
farms
Grouping of all terms is now complete though a
person does not have to use all terms provided
pollution
Run-off
people
cars
health
waterfaucet
recreation
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Parts of watershed

WORD MENU
Other Living Things
lakes
rivers
fish
mountains
animals
cities
wetlands
plants
farms
Labeling of the groups
Problems
pollution
Human concerns
Run-off
people
cars
health
waterfaucet
recreation
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WORD MENU
Now the groups are placed in relation to one
another and the strength of the relationship
indicated by the width of the connector
Watershed
Other Living Things
Problems
Human Concerns
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Behind the scenes, an excel file is being created
to compile everyones data.
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From everyones data, a correlation matrix is
calculated

• 0.82
• 0.00 0.55
• 0.00 0.00 0.36
• 0.00 0.09 0.18 0.64
• 0.18 0.18 0.00 0.09 1.00
• 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.45
• 0.00 0.09 0.18 0.27 0.27 0.00 0.91
• 0.09 0.09 0.27 0.36 0.36 0.00 0.45 1.09
• 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.45 0.00 0.00 0.73
• 0.09 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.45
  
• 0.09 0.09 0.18 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.09
  0.55
• 0.27 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.36 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.18
  0.00 0.82
• 0.00 0.09 0.18 0.64 0.18 0.00 0.36 0.45 0.00 0.00
  0.09 0.00 0.73
• 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.55 0.27 0.00 0.36 0.55 0.00 0.00
  0.09 0.00 0.64 0.73
• 0.18 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00
  0.09 0.27 0.00 0.00 0.73
• 0.64 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.09
  0.18 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.73
• 0.00 0.09 0.09 0.36 0.18 0.00 0.27 0.36 0.00 0.00
  0.09 0.00 0.45 0.45 0.18 0.00 0.73
• 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.00
  0.09 0.00 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.00 0.09 0.64
• 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.09 0.18 0.00 0.09 0.18 0.00 0.00
  0.09 0.00 0.18 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.27 0.09 0.45

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Using this correlation matrix, SPSS can be used
to do Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. One
presentation of HCA is a dendrogram.
Tight
Loose
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Why go techno?

• learning technologies expand the range of
  questions that can be investigated, the types of
  information that can be displayed, and the
  products that students can create to demonstrate
  their understandings (Krajcik, et al, 2000)

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Questions?
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Contact Information

• switzera_at_umich.edu
• www.miseagrant.umich.edu/flow/index.html
• www.goknow.com
• http//www.worldwatcher.northwestern.edu/