GP-IMPACT: ICE-AGE: Integrating Continuous Experiential Activities for Geoscience Education

田纳西州大多数高中不开设地学课程的事实严重阻碍了本科生进入田纳西州的地球科学专业学习。因此，学生往往高中毕业，进入大学时，并不真正知道地球科学是一个潜在的专业。ICE-AGE项目将通过让高中生接触核心科学课程背景下的地球科学来吸引他们。首先，将设计一系列“盒子里的课程”，以满足国家在生物、化学和物理等核心科学领域的教育标准，但明确来自跨学科的地球科学领域。这些课程将在校园博物馆的参观学校团体中进行测试，通过研讨会和教育会议向地区教师介绍，并由诺克斯县公共图书馆系统分发。其次，PI将与三个高中生团体合作，其中包括两个主要由代表不足的少数族裔组成的团体，进行真正的科学研究。这项工作扩大了一个项目，其中包括一所高中，该项目导致学生参与撰写同行评议的论文，以及四名学生在区域和国家科学会议上发表演讲。最后，PIS将为未来的教师开设两个新的班级，教授具有文化响应性的地球科学教育和科学研究方法。总而言之，PIs希望以这样一种方式向该地区的高中生和未来的教师介绍地球科学，以增强他们所需的学习目标，并使他们接触到在地质学和相关领域进一步学习和就业的潜力。第二部分该项目建议开发和部署一套整合的计划，使高中生参与从接触大量学生的一天课程到涉及较少学生的密集的、为期一年的研究项目。PIS还将培训任职前STEM教师使用主动学习技术，使用地质学概念。PIS将具体与少数族裔中人数较少的高中人口合作，以解决目前地学学生和从业人员的多样性较低的问题。PIS将通过教师研讨会、STEM教育会议和专业地球科学会议向全国各地的教师积极推广这些项目。最终，该项目将在教育和地球科学领域产生奖学金。PIS预计这些努力将使大约165名高中生接触到真正的地球科学研究，至少1000名学生参加A-Box课程。该项目还将帮助培训约90名职前教师、6名研究生和1名本科生，教授地球科学和制定符合文化背景的教案。该项目还将导致田纳西大学教师教育的理论和实践系以及地球和行星科学系的教师之间更紧密的合作。从长远来看，这些合作将帮助EPS的教师改进本科生的教学技术，并培训更多的任职前地球科学教师。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Part 1Recruiting undergraduate students to geoscience majors inTennessee is severely hampered by the fact that most Tennessee high schools do not offera geoscience class. As a result, students tend to graduate high school and enter collegewith no real idea that geoscience is a potential major. Project ICE-AGE will engage withhigh school students by exposing them to the geosciences in the context of core scienceclasses. First, a series of "Lessons-In-A-Box" will be designed to meet stateeducational standards in the core sciences of biology, chemistry, and physics, but drawnexplicitly from interdisciplinary geoscience fields. These lessons will be tested withvisiting school groups at a campus museum, introduced to area teachers throughworkshops and educational conferences, and circulated by the Knox County PublicLibrary System. Second, the PIs will collaborate with three groups of high school students,including two that consist primarily of underrepresented minorities, on authenticscientific research. This work expands a project with one high school that has resulted inparticipation of students in writing a peer-reviewed paper, and four student-ledpresentations at regional and national scientific meetings. Finally, PIs will create two newclasses for future teachers in culturally responsive geoscience education and researchmethods in science. Taken together, PIs expect to introduce area high school students andfuture teachers to the geosciences in such a way as to enhance their required learningobjectives and expose them to the potential for further study and employment in geologyand related fields.Part 2The project proposes to develop and deploy an integrated set ofprograms that will engage high school students along a spectrum from one-day lessonsthat will contact large numbers of students, to intensive, year-long research projects thatwill involve a smaller number of students. PIs will also train pre-service STEM teachersin the use of active learning techniques using geological concepts. PIs will specificallywork with high school populations that are enriched in underrepresented minorities, inorder to address the low diversity of current geoscience students and practitioners. PIswill actively promote these programs to teachers around the country via teachers'workshops, STEM education conferences, and professional geoscience conferences.Finally, this project will produce scholarship in the fields of education and geoscience.PIs expect that these efforts will expose ~165 high school students to authenticgeoscience research and at least 1000 students to Lessons-In-A-Box. The project will also help totrain ~90 pre-service teachers, 6 graduate students, and 1 undergraduate in teachinggeoscience and generating culturally responsive lesson plans. This project will also leadto closer collaboration between faculty in the University of Tennessee's Departments ofTheory and Practice in Teacher Education, and Earth and Planetary Sciences. In the longterm these collaborations will help EPS faculty to improve teaching techniques forundergraduates and to train more pre-service teachers in geoscience.This 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.