Teaching Ecosystem Complexity through Field Science Inquiry

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This four-year project results in a training manual, web-based resources, and training opportunities in field-based ecology for high school teachers. The teacher professional development is led by Professional Development Providers (PDPs), teams of scientists, science educators and experienced teachers who provide in-service teacher training. Some PDP are located at nature centers and similar sites where PDPs engage in ecological research. The training manual provides directions for engaging classroom teachers in real ecological research. The project is based upon prior work by scientists and educators in five Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites and is designed to increase teacher content knowledge in ecological concepts, improve their higher level thinking skills and interest more Hispanic students in ecology. To support the latter objective the project's materials are translated into Spanish. Recruitment of teachers who are proficient in Spanish for pilot and field-testing of the materials in Spanish occurs at four of the five sites.