Collaborative Research: EHR-Polar DCL: Addressing the Technical and Narrative Challenges in the Undergraduate Science Classroom

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Researchers at the University of Delaware (UD) and at Colgate University will revise and implement a course on polar science in the media. The course will equip students with the technical skills, including computer programming skills taught using a pair-programming approach, to evaluate geoscience data reported in the media and will place this data within a personal context using narratives that convey scientific information. Over the course of the project, ~100 non-geoscience major students will be immersed in a student-centered, data-driven course. Evaluations will focus on improving students' ability to analyze and understand the implications of data and on the transferability of the course materials to different institutions. The impact of this project will extend well beyond the award period through continued offerings at UD and Colgate University, by distributing the course and pedagogy content through the NSF-sponsored Science Education Resource Center (SERC) as the primary conduit to geoscience educators and through professional development workshops offered to new and existing geoscience instructors at major geoscience conferences. A new polar science course for non-STEM majors will be designed and implemented. The course is based on a combination of cognitivism and constructivism and with quantitative metrics for assessing student progress on technical and narrative challenges. Evaluations will address the hypothesis that student exposure to a pair-programming pedagogy will improve their technical data access and interpretation skills and the hypothesis that students exposed to developed narrative structure exercises will demonstrate improved perspective-taking skills and will be able to demonstrate better understanding the narrative context in which the data are presented. The project is co-funded by the Office of Polar Programs and the Division of Undergraduate Education.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.