Geoscience Environmental Education - Web-Accssible Instrumented Systems

0002993托格森教育研究支持在课堂上创造一个吸引学生的现实环境的至关重要性。 情境学习的理论，教学方法，如锚定教学，和成功的高中，UG地球科学的努力，都建议学生从事的“宏观背景”，将学习置于科学家，政治家和/或公民的真实实践中。 这增加了学生发现地球科学知识作为解决他们自己的真实的世界中的问题的工具的有用性的可能性;也就是说，他们将发现信息存在的理由，并且能够将学习从课堂转移到他们自己的生活中。 为了1）提供学习的机会，2）提供从个人经验中推断的工具（最好的学习工具）3）欣赏影响他们日常生活的科学/经济耦合和反馈回路，4）欣赏耦合系统的时间响应，（五）有意识地让本科生和高中生都参与构建关于多个耦合动态环境的理解为了解决这些问题（实验室水、池塘水和长岛湾的沃茨），PI将在康涅狄格大学购买并安装一个仪器化环境实验室（InEnLab）。 将在校园池塘中安装市售的环境探针，以清楚地展示（在每日时间尺度上）化学物质的耦合相互作用。在这些小而普通的池塘里进行生物/物理实验。 数据流（T，cond.，O2、pH等，每15分钟）将直接连接到互联网，并通过（例如，www.myPond.uconn.edu www.mySound.uconn.edu）。 一个锚定的问题，涉及水的问题和周围的大学社区将作为一个背景下，为学生开发，识别和量化这个耦合系统的动态。 这个网络可访问的数据流（与科学家日记评论），然后将作为一个背景下的UG和HS课堂问题/例子，耦合系统动力学和独立调查的演示，以及创造本科生荣誉论文的独特机会。 这些经验将为学生提供一个机会，使他们在受控实验室实验中所做的观察与这些经验相互关联，这些实验量化了离散过程，并导致对环境系统在更大的时间尺度和更大的空间尺度上的幅度和时间响应的理解。 将利用来自www.mySound.uconn.edu的流数据，对镜像池、布里奇波特港和长岛海峡的过程和时间尺度进行比较，从而促进知识转让。 项目管理将采取目标管理办法。 形成性评价依赖的措施将包括完成目标和时间表，在线网站统计，教师变量（实施保真度）和学生变量（知识，态度和行为，包括兴趣，自我效能和地球科学内容的成就）。 形成性评价方法包括教师和学生调查、学生在情景中解决问题的人工制品、课程成绩、教师访谈和学生访谈。 形成性评价将由项目小组成员进行，总结性评价将由外部评价员进行。

0002993TorgersenEducational research supports the critical importance of creating a realistic context in the classroom that is engaging to students. Theories of situated learning, instructional approaches such as anchored instruction, and successful high school, UG geoscience efforts, all recommend that students be engaged in a "macro-context" that situates learning in the authentic practices of scientists, politicians, and/or citizens. This increases the probability that students will detect the usefulness of geoscience knowledge as a tool for solving problems in their own real world; that is, they will detect the information's raison d'etre and be able to transfer learning from the classroom to their own lives. In order to 1) provide opportunities to learn, 2) provide the tools to extrapolate from personal experience (the best learning tool) 3) appreciate the scientific/economic couplings and feedback loops that affect their daily lives and 4) appreciate the temporal response of coupled systems, and 5) mindfully engage both undergraduate and high school students in construction of understanding concerning coupled dynamic environments across multiple scales (lab water, pond water, and the waters of Long Island Sound), the PIs will acquire and install an Instrumented Environmental Laboratory (InEnLab) at the University of Connecticut. Commercially available environmental probes will be installed in campus ponds that clearly demonstrate (on a daily timescale) the coupled interactions of chem./bio/phys within these small, commonplace ponds. The data streams (T, cond., O2, pH, etc., every 15 minutes) from these in situ probes will be directly connected to the Internet and available in real time through (e.g., www.myPond.uconn.edu) modeled after an existing www.mySound.uconn.edu . An anchored problem involving water issues in and around the University community will serve as a context for students to develop, identify and quantify the dynamics of this coupled system. This web-accessible data stream (with scientist diary comments) will then serve as a context for UG and HS classroom problems/examples, demonstrations of coupled system dynamics and independent inquiry as well as create unique opportunities for undergraduate honors theses. Such experiences will afford students an opportunity to inter-relate these experiences with observations they make during controlled laboratory experiments that quantify discrete processes and lead to an appreciation of the magnitude and temporal response of environmental systems over larger time scales and larger space scales. Transfer of knowledge will be stimulated by comparison of the processes and time scales in Mirror Pond to Bridgeport Harbor and Long Island Sound using streamed data from www.mySound.uconn.edu. Project management will take a management-by-objectives approach. Formative evaluation dependent measures will include completion of objectives and timelines, online website statistics, instructor variables (implementation fidelity) and student variables (knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors including interest, self-efficacy, and geoscience content achievement). Formative evaluation methods will include teacher and student surveys, artifacts of student problem solving on the scenario, course grades, teacher interviews and student interviews. The formative evaluation will be conducted by project team members and the summative by an external evaluator.