IUSE: Fostering Undergraduate Students' Disciplinary Learning and Water Literacy

该项目将支持本科生对核心水文学概念以及与水有关的社会、文化、经济和政治层面的深入理解。该项目将设计和研究一门新的、跨学科的本科课程，《社会中的水》，专为一年级学生(STEM专业和非专业学生)设计。项目工作将是跨学科的，涉及STEM教育、水文科学、社会科学和决策科学等领域，并将促进关于人类-环境系统、STEM知情决策和科学素养的本科生教学和学习的理论和研究。该项目将影响未来的STEM劳动力，并在未来的选民和消费者中培养水素养。该项目将利用预先指定的迭代教学设计过程，为基于有效的中学后STEM教学和当代学习理论的原则的课程的开发和持续改进提供信息。与该项目在教学设计背景下对早期探索性研究的关注一致，该项目将探索学生结果、可塑性因素和中介或调节变量之间的联系，以阐明关于学生如何参与STEM关于社会-水文问题的知情决策的潜在理论。该项目是对本科生科学学习学科教育研究呼声的直接回应。项目成果将包括一个以研究为基础的跨学科水科学课程，以及在整个项目期间从课程实施研究中得出的实证研究结果。

This project will support undergraduate students to develop robust understanding of core hydrological concepts, as well as the social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions of water-related issues. This project will design and study a new, interdisciplinary undergraduate course, Water in Society, designed for first year students (STEM majors and non-majors). Project work will be transdisciplinary, drawing from the fields of STEM education, hydrological sciences, and social and decision sciences, and will contribute to theory and research on undergraduate teaching and learning about human-environmental systems, STEM-informed decision-making, and science literacy. The project will impact the future STEM workforce, as well as cultivate water literacy in future voters and consumers.The project will utilize a pre-specified, iterative instructional design process to inform the development and ongoing refinement of a course grounded in tenets of effective post-secondary STEM instruction and contemporary learning theory. Consistent with the project's focus on early-stage, exploratory research in an instructional design context, the project will explore associations between student outcomes, malleable factors, and mediating or moderating variables to clarify underlying theory about how students engage in STEM-informed decision-making about socio-hydrological issues. The project is a direct response to calls for discipline-based educational research on undergraduate students' science learning. Project deliverables will include a research-based, interdisciplinary water science course and empirical research findings from study of course implementation throughout the project period.