Our Cosmic History

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Our Cosmic History

• Saturday Symposia
• Lecture 1
• Teaching a Unified Account of the Past
• Dr. David Christian
• Dept. of History, San Diego State University
• Sept. 13, 2008

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Goals of the series

• Big picture view of science to give the details a
  meaningful context. (In this case, the story of
  our own origins, relevant to our perspective on
  who we are and where we are headed.)
• Help weaving big picture motivation provided by
  the series into the details of science curricula
  (complement broad-brush view with nitty-gritty
  details)
• Building a community of people curious about the
  universe and our place within it (regardless of
  professional role teacher, student, researcher,
  or other member of the public)

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• Goal 1 - Big picture view to make science
  meaningful
• A great many studies have focused on
  opportunities for improving science education.
  Recommendations have ranged from increasing the
  level of training for science teachers to
  curriculum reforms. But most of these studies
  (and their suggestions) avoid an overarching
  systemic issue in teaching our students, we
  continually fail to activate rich opportunities
  for revealing the breathtaking vistas opened up
  by science, and instead focus on the need to gain
  competency with sciences underlying technical
  details. In fact, many students Ive spoken to
  have little sense of the big questions those
  technical details collectively try to answer
  Where did the universe come from? How did life
  originate? How does the brain give rise to
  consciousness? Like a music curriculum that
  requires its students to practice scales while
  rarely if ever inspiring them by playing the
  great masterpieces, this way of teaching science
  squanders the chance to make students sit up in
  their chairs and say, Wow, thats science?
• Brian Greene

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• Goal 2 - Weaving big picture motivation into the
  details of teaching curricula
• Brown bag lunch discussion
• Noon - 1 pm
• Coos Bay room downstairs

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• Goal 3 - Building Community
• What our world needsisflexible and functional
  learning environments where people, young and
  old, can be exposed to concepts and ideas
  relevant to their present and to their future."
• Ervin Laszlo
• Wiki Site - http//oregonteacherscholars.pbwiki.c
  om/Our-Cosmic-History
• (or link from www.scienceintegration.org)

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• Lecture 2
• Our Cosmic Context
• Dr. Todd Duncan
• PSU CSE Pacific U. Physics Dept.
• Oct. 18, 2008
• Hoffman Hall, PSU
• ( Please check back on the website to confirm
  location
• www.scienceintegration.org)

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Thanks to

• Oregon Dept. of Education Math/Science Partners
  Grant (primary funding for this lecture series)
• Portland State University Center for Science
  Education
• Beaverton and Hillsboro School Districts
• Pacific University
• Science Integration Institute