PAGES (Progressing through the Ages: Global climate change, Evolution, and Societal well-being)

 描述（由申请人提供）：通过时代进步：全球变化，进化和社会福祉是一个雄心勃勃的课程开发和教师教育计划，将增加教师和学生对气候变化和进化过程的认识，塑造生态系统。这一努力与新发布的下一代科学标准（NGSS）保持一致，该标准非常重视生态，进化和气候变化。了解这些生物过程对于解决许多现代健康挑战和社会问题至关重要。虽然近三分之二的美国公众（63%）认为地球正在变暖，但只有48%的人认为这是由于人类活动造成的（Leiserowitz，Maibach，Roser-Renouf等人，2015）。同样，许多美国人（33%）反对人类与其他动物共享进化历史的观点（皮尤研究中心，2013）。教师本身往往缺乏这些方面的知识。然而，NGSS在K-12教育的所有年级在这些领域设定了许多严格的绩效期望。随着时间的推移，NGSS的业绩预期相互依存。因此，K-12教师的任务是开发新的，深入的课程材料，在科学领域，他们可能面临持怀疑态度的家长/学生，他们自己可能缺乏关键内容的知识，跨年级整合。PAGES建议合并（a）跨越K-12的课程开发计划，以NGSS和伊利诺伊大学正在进行的研究为中心，（B）严格的专业发展计划，整合NGSX平台，向跨越K-12的教师团队教授关键内容和教学知识。PAGES的长期目标是使K-12教师能够使用跨年级整合的高质量课程单元，以便学生随着时间的推移继续学习关键概念，以满足NGSS中建立的绩效期望。PAGES将创建一系列8个2-4周的连贯单元，使学区能够随时将其课程与NGSS保持一致。此外，PAGES将增加教师在进化和气候变化方面的知识，使教师能够自信地教授这些科目。PAGES的一个关键创新是突出生态/进化/气候变化与人类健康/社会福祉之间的联系。这些包括（a）昆虫、媒介传播疾病和生态相互作用之间的联系，以及（B）作为不同环境的函数的表型变异和进化之间的联系。PAGES将帮助培养新一代的学生，他们了解我们社会面临的许多问题的生物学基础，并将激励他们帮助解决这些问题。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Progressing through the Ages: Global change, Evolution, and Societal well-being is an ambitious curriculum development and teacher education program that will increase teachers' and students' knowledge of the processes of climate change and evolution that shape ecosystems. This effort is aligned to the newly released Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which place heavy emphasis on ecology, evolution, and climate change. Knowledge of these biological processes is crucial to addressing many modern health challenges and societal problems. While almost two-thirds of the U.S. public (63%) believe that the earth is warming, but only 48% believe this is due to human activities (Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, et al., 2015). Similarly, many Americans (33%) reject the idea humans share an evolutionary history with other animals (Pew Research Center, 2013). Teachers themselves often lack content knowledge in these areas. However, the NGSS sets numerous rigorous performance expectations in these areas at all grade levels across K-12 education. The NGSS performance expectations build on one another over time. Hence, K-12 teachers are tasked with developing new, in-depth curriculum materials that integrate across grade levels in areas of science where they may face skeptical parents/students and where they themselves may lack critical content knowledge. PAGES proposes to merge (a) a curriculum development program that spans K-12, centered on the NGSS and research being done at the University of Illinois, with (b) a rigorous professional development plan integrating the NGSX platform to teach critical content and pedagogical knowledge to teams of teachers spanning K-12. PAGES' long-term goal is to empower K-12 teachers to use high quality curriculum units that are integrated across grade-levels so that students continue learning critical concepts over time in order to meet the performance expectations established in the NGSS. PAGES will create a series of eight 2-4-week coherent units that will enable school districts to readily align their curriculum with the NGSS. Additionally, PAGES will increase teacher content knowledge in evolution and climate change, empowering teachers to teach these subjects with confidence. A key innovation of PAGES is to highlight links between ecology/evolution/climate change and human health/societal well-being. These include the links between (a) insects, vector-borne disease, and ecological interactions and (b) phenotypic variation and evolution as a function of differing environments. PAGES will help create a new generation of students that understands the biology underlying many problems facing our society and will motivate them to help solve these problems.