Development and Publication

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Development and Publication
Earth System Science in the Community
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ORIGINS

• National Assessment of Educational Progress
• AGI Earth Science Content Guidelines Grades K-12
  
• Standards and Benchmarks
• National Science Foundation

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National Assessment of Educational Progress

• Regular studies by NAEP and NCES reveal.
• Low levels of achievement in math and science
• High percentage of teachers without
  specialization
• Lack of school support for teacher enhancement
• Decline in high schools offering earth science

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Earth Science Content Guidelines Grades K-12

• AGI 1991
• Essential Questions
• Key Ideas
• Seeking Answers
• Content Domains
• Solid Earth
• Water
• Air
• Ice
• Life
• Earth in Space

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Standards and Benchmarks

• National Research Council
• AAAS Project 2061
• Promote depth and understanding in curriculum
• Focus on the needs of all students
• View reform as systemic change
• Emphasize role of inquiry in learning
• Contain Earth and Space Science as Separate
  Content Domain

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National Science Foundation

• Provides funding for
• Standards-based curriculum
• Teacher enhancement
• Implementation centers
• Funded AGI to produce
• Investigating Earth Systems (1994)
• EarthComm (1995)

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• Goals
• 1. Develop modular, comprehensive program for
  grades 9-12 that is based upon the National
  Science Education Standards.
• Engage students through community
• Promote inquiry
• Emphasize Earth systems
• 2. Establish teacher enhancement programs to
  support implementation.

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DEVELOPMENT and TESTING

• Drafted by university faculty-teacher teams in
  1998
• Pilot tested by 30 high school teachers in Spring
  1999
• Revised by Members of NESTA in Summer 1999
• Field tested by 76 high school teachers in 27
  states in the 1999-2000 school year.

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Evaluation Results

• When all the sources of information from the
  field test were considered it became clear that
  Module 1 of the EarthComm curriculum worked
  effectively in the field test classrooms. Almost
  all of the field test teachers were very
  favorably impressed by the high quality of the
  science content, the module components, many of
  the hands on activities, the inquiry approach,
  the group work, and the relevance to the
  community. Most teachers also reported student
  interest in the overall program to be moderately
  high and very high in many of the activities.
  Furthermore the data collected indicated that the
  students had learned the material and
  accomplished many of the goals covered in Module
  1.
• Independent Project Evaluators Report, April,
  2000

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PUBLICATION

• Publishes only NSF-funded and field tested
  programs.
• Supports implementation with teacher workshops,
  software, and Materials kits.

• Other IAT Programs

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TEACHER ENHANCEMENT

• Exxon Education Foundation
• Four universities geoscientist-science educator
  workshop teams.
• 167 teachers and administrators
• Goals/outcomes
• new geoscience content
• ways to promote classroom inquiry
• how to use technology to obtain resources
• new methods of assessing performance
• improved knowledge of standards

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TEACHER ENHANCEMENT

• Additional Outcomes
• 80 teachers tested EarthComm in their classrooms
  and provided feedback for the commercial edition.
• 15 teachers will become workshop leaders.
• A training manual was prepared for future teacher
  enhancement programs.

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IMPLEMENTATION

• Summer leadership institutes to prepare future
  workshop leaders
• Variety of workshops to meet diverse needs of
  schools and districts.
• Web support and CD-ROM for geoscience content
  and access to data and resources.
• Web-based forums to promote dialogue amongst
  teachers and between teachers and geoscientists.
• Create professional development videos

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FURTHER INFORMATION

• Its About Time
• 1-888-698-TIME
• www.its-about-time.com
• American Geological Institute
• www.agiweb.org/education/