Iowa Chautauqua: A Regional Effort to Achieve More Appropriate Science for Students in Grades Four through Nine

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Dr. Robert Yager of the University of Iowa has developed a teacher enhancement program ("Iowa Chautauqua") for middle school teachers across the state. This program provides teachers with a three-week workshop experience in the Science-Technology-Society (STS) approach to science instruction. The STS approach stresses the societal impacts and issues of natural, technological, and anthropocentric activities. Examples of STS issues would include drought, agriculture, hydroelectric power generation. Teachers will have instruction on how to identify STS issues that are local concerns and are likely to engage students in meaningful inquiry. Teachers will develop the ability to enable student investigations by facilitating data gathering, analysis, and design of alternative social action. These social actions can be pursued as out-of-school efforts to address real community issues. The Iowa Chautauqua will reach 300 Iowa middle school science teachers in ten different areas during a two year period. Scientists from industry and from science faculty at Iowa universities and community colleges are involved as science resources. Dr. Yager's project leadership team has assembled an impressive array of information sources from which students and teachers may derive data for their investigations. This teacher enhancement project will help teachers and students to develop as independent investigators with an awareness of the relationships between science and society. Cost sharing on this project represents 53% of the NSF contribution.