Collaborative Research: Developing a Modeling Orientation to Science: Teaching and Learning Variability and Change in Ecosystems

该项目让中学生参与构建和修改生态系统可变性和变化的模型，并研究这些课堂环境中的学习和教学。学生构建和批判他们和同龄人发明的模型，并通过模型的镜头发展关于生态系统功能的变异性和变化的作用的基础知识，以及模型和科学实践中的论证的作用。学生工作的背景是一套基于公民科学的缅因州生态系统变化调查，在12个合作教室进行。该项目研究学生如何以及在多大程度上使用不同形式的建模，并告知他们如何调查生态系统。一项平行的研究调查了教师对建模的舒适和熟练程度的发展如何以及在多大程度上改变了学生对这些建模形式的参与以及学生对生态系统的理解。该项目的一个关键贡献是利用缅因湾研究所的生态系统调查网络的公民科学实地研究，为中学生提供关于真实生态系统的发明、修改和竞赛模型的需求。从该项目的研究中得出的理解为以下方面提供了证据：首先，将学习经验扩展到生态系统调查网络的500多名教师组成的网络；其次，在全国范围内推广旨在让学生参与数据丰富的实地生态调查的项目。调查在12个合作的中学教室中进行，从缅因州生态系统调查网络培训的500多名缅因州教师中抽取。在实地调查的过程中，学生参与构建、批判和修订三种形式的建模，这些建模在生态学中起着核心作用：微观世界、系统动力学和数据建模。在项目过程中引入了两项创新。第一个重点是丰富课堂支持参与多种形式的建模。第二项涉及加强中学教师对建模的学习，特别是在大数据公民科学调查的背景下。本研究采用混合方法探讨创新对教师和学生的经验和理解的影响。工具包括教师访谈和问卷调查，学生访谈和课堂观察。从该项目的研究中获得的理解将为教师的专业发展设计提供信息，围绕数据分析和解释，以及学生对建模的理解如何在持续的支持下发展，这两者都是科学素养的核心实践。探索研究preK-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发新的创新和方法，显著提高preK-12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为项目提供了理论和实证依据。该项目由DRK-12和促进竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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 engages middle-school students in building and revising models of variability and change in ecosystems and studies the learning and instruction in these classroom contexts. Students construct and critique models that they and peers invent and – through the lens of models –develop foundational knowledge about the roles of variability and change in ecosystem functioning, as well as the roles of models and argumentation in scientific practice. The context for students’ work is a set of citizen science-based investigations of changes in ecosystems in Maine conducted in twelve collaborating classrooms. The project studies how and to what extent students’ use of different forms of modeling emerges from and informs how they investigate ecosystems. A parallel research effort investigates how and to what extent the development of teachers’ comfort and proficiency with modeling changes students’ engagement in these forms of modeling and students’ understandings of ecosystems. A key contribution of the project is capitalizing on the Gulf of Maine Research Institutes’s Ecosystem Investigation Network's citizen science field research to ground for middle school students the need to invent, revise, and contest models about real ecosystems. The understandings that result from the project’s research provide evidence toward first, scaling the learning experiences to the network of 500+ teachers who are part of the Ecosystem Investigation Network, and, second, replication by programs nationally that aim to engage students in data-rich, field-based ecological investigations.The investigation takes place in twelve collaborating middle-school classrooms, drawn from the network of 500+ Maine teachers trained in Maine's Ecosystem Investigation Network. Over the course of their field investigations, students engage in the construction, critique, and revision of three forms of modeling that play central roles in ecology: microcosms, system dynamics, and data modeling. Two innovations are introduced over the course of the project. The first is focused on enriching classroom supports for engaging in multiple forms of modeling. The second involves enhancing middle school teachers’ learning about modeling, especially in the context of large data citizen science investigations. The study uses a mixed methods approach to explore the impact of the innovations on the experiences and understandings of both teachers and students. Instruments include teacher interviews and questionnaires, student interviews, and classroom observation. The understandings that result from the project’s research will inform the design of professional development for teachers around data analysis and interpretation, and around how student understanding of modeling develops with sustained support, both of which are practices at the heart of scientific literacy. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by preK-12 students and teachers, through the research and development of new innovations and approaches. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for the projects. This project is jointly funded by DRK-12 and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.