COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Biocomplexity and the Habitable Planet - An Innovative Capstone Course for High School

本计画将发展一套教学材料，让学生、教师及其家长参与自然人类耦合系统的科学。 教师指南，网站和家庭/社区材料伴随着四个学生模块（重点是城市流域，城市/农业系统，亚马逊河和极地系统）。 该课程为为期一年的顶点课程提供材料;个别模块可用作替换单元。 在全球人类对环境产生影响的时代，理解人类与环境之间的“复杂关系结构”对所有公民来说都具有独特的紧迫性。 研究“自然”系统而不考虑人类的相互作用是不可能的。 高中教材需要反映这一至关重要的事实，并支持学生参与系统现象的真实调查。 为了满足这一需求，Biocomplexity借鉴了长期生态研究（LTER）网站和其他CNH Biocomplexity受让人的当前研究作为材料的基础。 生物复杂性是基于探究的。学生材料支架活动，以支持所有学生-特别是那些从历史上欠发达的背景-学习成功。 课程设计是通过对学生学习科学内容和推理的进展情况的研究来确定的。 生物复杂性使用“反向设计”方法开发，确保教学策略促进学习的关键思想。生物复杂性是一个“教育课程“：教师教材提供广泛和实际的支持，增加教师的内容知识和教学技能。这一建议有望有效地将高中课堂与重要的当前科学联系起来，同时在纳入真实科学探究和使用基于案例的方法的创新课程的背景下，扩大和加强核心科学和数学概念的学习。 此外，该项目将对学生理解模型及其在科学探究中的应用的教育研究做出重大贡献。 该课程对该领域做出了独特的贡献，因为它在生物复杂性的当前研究中有基础。它的重点是CNH系统，位于城市，农村和其他环境中，结果在应用科学的问题为基础的情况下，将迫使来自所有背景的学生的兴趣。 学生体验真实的科学探究，探索从事科学家和研究人员相同的基本思想。 根据最近最好的研究-科学和教育-课程将反映科学的日益重要性，统一了生物学研究许多领域的见解。 社区元素有助于在学校、家长和社区之间建立牢固的联系。 与LTER和其他地方的研究人员的合作将为LTER的教育计划带来积极的协同成果，同时将一系列新的全国重要研究中心与全国各地的高中教室联系起来。

This project will develop set of instructional materials that engages students, teachers, and their parents in the science of coupled natural human (CNH) systems. Teacher guides, a website and family/community materials accompany the four student modules (which focus on an urban watershed, an urban/agricultural system, Amazonia and a polar system). The curriculum provides material for a yearlong capstone course; individual modules can be used as replacement units. In an era of global human impact on the environment, understanding the "complex fabric of relationships" between humans and the environment is of unique urgency for all citizens. It is no longer possible to study "natural" systems without considering human interactions. There is a need for high school materials that reflect this critically important fact, and that also support students to engage in authentic investigations of systems phenomena. To address this need, Biocomplexity draws on current research by the Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) sites and other CNH Biocomplexity grantees as the basis for the materials. Biocomplexity is inquiry-based. Student materials scaffold activities to support all students -- particularly those from historically underserved backgrounds -- to learn successfully. Curriculum design is informed by research on progression in student learning of scientific content and reasoning. Developed using the "backward design" approach, Biocomplexity ensures that instructional strategies promote learning the key ideas. Biocomplexity is an "educative curriculum:" teacher materials provide extensive and practical support that increases teachers' content knowledge and pedagogical skills. This proposal promises to effectively link the high school classroom with important current science and at the same time extend and strengthen the learning of core scientific and mathematical concepts, in the context of an innovative curriculum incorporating authentic scientific inquiry and using a case-based approach. Furthermore, the project will make a significant contribution to education research on students' understanding of models and their use in science inquiry. This curriculum makes a unique contribution to the field because of its grounding in current research on Biocomplexity. Its focus on CNH systems, situated in urban, rural and other settings, results in problem-based cases in applied science that will compel the interest of students from all backgrounds. Students experience authentic scientific inquiry, exploring the same fundamental ideas that engage scientists and researchers. Informed by the best recent research -- both scientific and educational -- the curriculum will reflect the growing importance of science that unifies insights from many fields of biological inquiry. Community elements serve to develop strong ties between school, parents and communities. The partnership with researchers at LTERs and elsewhere will have positive synergistic outcomes for the LTERs' education programs, while connecting a new range of nationally important research centers with high school classrooms across the country.