General Education Course Development for Earth System Science and Global Change

科学和工程专业的学生以及非科学专业的学生的本科科学教育必须发展，使学生接触有效掌握关键和新兴科学问题所需的工具。1991年，亚利桑那大学开始了为期两个学期的“全球变化导论”课程，向非科学专业的学生讲授地球系统。该课程在科学家，决策者和公民面临的全球问题和挑战的背景下教授基本科学原理。 目前的项目进一步发展这一普通科学课程序列，以更充分地将信息技术融入课程，并明确设计材料，通过几种不同的教学策略，促进协作学习和批判性思维技能。 专业研究员正在与一名独立的专业评估员合作，为两门课程的顺序开发和实施10个模块。一个模块是一个课程单元集中在一个单一的主题，并涉及实验室部分，讲座，家庭作业，讨论或其他资源。他们努力的重点是：i）开发基于计算机的实验室练习作为模块的中心，ii）在课堂上实施基于计算机的工具，iii）组装和准备完成每个模块所需的额外材料（例如视觉辅助工具，研究问题，背景材料，参考资料），以及iv）在课堂练习册中记录每个模块。该练习册包括软件和数据文件，将提供给有兴趣开设类似全球变化课程的其他学院和大学的教员。 该项目的一个重要方面是明确评估不同教学策略对不同性别、种族和社会经济阶层学生的有效性。这种多学科教学工作是亚利桑那大学全球变化研究计划的一部分。

Undergraduate science education for both students majoring in science and engineering, and those students who are non-science majors must evolve to bring students in contact with the tools needed to efficiently grasp critical and emerging scientific issues. In 1991, the University of Arizona started a two-semester sequence "Introduction to Global Change" to teach non-science majors about the Earth system. The course teaches basic scientific principles in the context of global problems and challenges facing scientists, policy makers and citizens alike. The current project further develops this general-science course sequence in order to more fully integrate information technologies into the courses, and to explicitly design materials that promote collaborative learning and critical thinking skills through several different instructional strategies. PIs are working with an independent, professional evaluator to develop and implement 10 modules for the two-course sequence. A module is a course unit focusing on a single topic, and involves laboratory sections, lectures, homework, discussions or other resources. The focus of their efforts is on: i) developing computer-based laboratory exercises as the centerpieces of the modules, ii) implementing the computer-based tools with the classes, iii) assembling and preparing the additional material needed to complete each module (e.g. visual aids, study questions, background material, references), and iv) documenting each module in a workbook for the classes. The workbook, including documentation of software and data, will be made available to faculty at other colleges and universities interested in developing similar global-change courses. An important aspect of this project is the explicit assessment of the effectiveness of different instructional strategies on students of different gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class. This multidisciplinary teaching effort is part of the University of Arizona's global-change resea rch program.