Watershed Awareness using Technology and Environmental Research for Sustainability (WATERS)

该项目将推进“面向学生和教师的创新技术体验”（ITEST）项目的工作，通过开发和测试以水和与水相关的职业意识为重点的中学科学课程，更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学（STEM）领域追求职业的动机和能力的实践。来自美国三个地区的不同的中学生将参与到基于项目的学习中，其中包括实际操作的地理空间分析和使用国家和地方数据来探索当地的分水岭问题。该项目将应用通用学习设计（UDL）的原则，创建一种面向所有学生的有效、可扩展的水学习方法。通过在信息展示和学生反应方面提供灵活性，减少教学障碍，并提供适当的支持和挑战，该项目将增加对课程和方法的使用，这些课程和方法有可能大大提高全国学习者对水概念和职业道路的认识和参与。与新课程相结合，该项目将制作一种课堂观察工具，教师可以用它来评估学生的参与度、UDL支持的使用情况、完成任务的时间和探究教学期间的内容理解情况。该项目的目标是开发和测试一个以学生为中心，普遍可访问的中学课程，以学习水概念和提高水事业意识。为实现这一目标，该项目将开发并实施一套12课时的课程单元，让学生参与使用地理信息系统（GIS）应用和基于当地流域数据收集的建模，利用UDL技术扩大学习者的包容性，并让9名经验丰富的试点教师在三年的开发期内共同设计和迭代改进课程。将采用准实验、实验/对照组研究设计来回答以下研究问题：参与以探究项目为基础的中学分水岭课程与学生对STEM科目的信心和效能、21世纪学习技能和对STEM职业的兴趣有何关系？和2。UDL如何在基于探究项目的中学分水岭课程中支持所有学习者（智力超群的学生、学习英语的学生、经济上处于不利地位的学生或残疾学生）？将从加利福尼亚州、宾夕法尼亚州和弗吉尼亚州招募中学科学教师及其学生参与该项目。将从每个州聘请三名教师在一年级试行该课程，并向课程团队提供反馈，以便为课程和研究的修订提供信息。实验组和对照组的学习目标和活动将是相同的，但对照组的课程将不包括UDL技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by developing and testing a middle school science curriculum focusing on water and water-related career awareness. Diverse middle school students across three regions of the United States will become engaged in project-based learning that includes hands-on geospatial analysis and use of national and local data to explore local watershed issues. The project will apply principles from Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to create an effective, scalable approach to water learning open to all students. By providing flexibility in information presentation and student responses, reducing barriers in instruction, and providing appropriate supports and challenges, the project will increase access to curricula and approaches having the potential to greatly increase awareness of and engagement with water concepts and career pathways in learners nationwide. In conjunction with the new curriculum, the project will produce a classroom observation instrument that teachers can use to assess student engagement, use of UDL supports, time on task, and content understanding during inquiry instruction. The goal of this project is to develop and test a student-centered, universally accessible middle school curriculum for learning water concepts and promoting water career awareness. To accomplish this goal, the project will develop and implement a 12-session curriculum unit that will engage students in use of Geographic Information System (GIS) applications and modeling based on data collection within local watersheds, use UDL technologies to broaden inclusivity among learners, and engage nine experienced pilot teachers in co-designing and iteratively improving the curriculum over the three-year development period. A quasi-experimental, experimental/comparison group research design will be used to to answer the following research questions: 1. How does engagement in an inquiry project-based middle school watershed curriculum relate to students' confidence and efficacy in STEM subjects, 21st century learning skills, and interest in STEM careers? And 2. How does UDL support all learners (students who are intellectually gifted, students learning the English language, students who are economically disadvantaged, or students with disabilities) of an inquiry project-based middle school watershed curriculum? Middle school science teachers and their students will be recruited from California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to participate in the project. Three teachers from each state will be recruited to pilot the curriculum in Year 1 and provide feedback to the curriculum team to inform curriculum and research revisions. The learning objectives and activities will be the same for both the experimental and comparison groups, but the comparison group curriculum will not include the UDL technologiesThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.