Enhanced Earth system teaching through ReaL Earth Inquiry

REAL(区域和本地)地球研究项目使教师能够在课堂上使用真实世界的本地和区域地球系统科学(ESS)。地球系统科学教师需要教学背景、内容和支持，使他们能够让学生对他们自己的社区提出真正的问题。该项目正在开发在线“教师友好指南”(资源)，使这些目标更容易实现，并加深学生对ESS的理解。这些工具包括基本内容，通过在岩石、地貌、水系、气候和特定地区的灾害中说明这些原则来扩大教科书的原则，使教师能够根据他们自己对基本地球系统过程和该地区的地质和气候历史的知识来理解这些特征。通过虚拟实地工作体验(VFE)，该项目将教室扩展到四面墙之外，并吸引学生进行探究。虚拟企业为参与真正的调查提供了一个框架，受到一个问题的驱动：为什么这个地方看起来是这样的？这个问题要求对多个地球系统及其相互作用进行无限制的调查。教师可以通过多种方式获取信息，包括印刷材料、鼓励方便使用和下载的网站以及来自全国各地的VFE数据库，该数据库可用于任何课堂。通过在小型区域讲习班上与教师互动，对内容和教学形式进行早期评估。从最初的观察到课堂上实际使用指南和VFE，该项目在整个资助期间都保持联系。此外，该项目正在与美国研究所合作，为网站导航创建一项“可用性评估”，并为试图在制定教案时使用在线材料的教师确定任何问题。

The ReaL (Regional and Local) Earth Inquiry project empowers teachers to employ real-world local and regional Earth system science (ESS) in the classroom. Earth systems science teachers need the pedagogic background, the content, and the support that enables them to engage students in asking real questions about their own communities. The project is developing online "Teacher-Friendly Guides" (resources) that make each of these ends more readily attainable and deepen student understandings of ESS. Tools include basic content that enlarges upon textbook principles by illustrating them in rocks, landforms, water systems, climate, and hazards specific to their region, empowering teachers to make sense of these features in light of their own knowledge of basic earth system processes and the geologic and climatic history of the region. Through Virtual Fieldwork Experiences (VFEs), the project expands classrooms beyond their four walls and engages students in inquiry. VFEs provide a framework for engagement in genuine inquiry, driven by the question "Why does this place look the way it does?" This question invites open-ended investigation of multiple Earth systems and their interactions. Teachers are able to access information in many ways, through printed materials, a website that encourages easy usage and downloads, and a database of VFEs from all over the country, which can be taken and adapted for any classroom. Early evaluation of content and pedagogic form occurs through interaction with teachers at small regional workshops. Contact is maintained over the life of the grant, from initial observations to actual classroom use of Guides and VFE's. Additionally, the project is working with the American Institutes for Research, creating a "usability evaluation" of the website navigation and identifying any issues for teachers trying to use the on-line materials as they develop lesson plans.