Geological models for Explorations of Dynamic Earth (GEODE): Integrating the power of geodynamic models in middle school Earth Science curriculum

探索研究K-12计划(DRK-12)旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具(RMT)，显著提高K-12学龄前学生和教师在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)方面的学习和教学。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努力的基础上，这些研究和开发工作为拟议的项目提供了理论和经验证明。该项目将有助于地球科学教育界了解，让学生接触动态的计算机系统模型如何有助于他们学习有关地球表面现象和次表面过程的复杂地球科学概念。它还将扩大该领域对学生如何发展建模实践以及如何使用模型来支持科学努力的理解。这项研究将阐明不确定性在学生使用模型来发展基于模型的证据的科学论证时所起的作用。Geode项目将直接涉及来自不同学校系统的4000多名学生和22名教师，为来自不同社会经济、文化和种族背景的家庭的学生提供服务。这些学生将接触到重要的地球科学概念，这些概念是人类目前面临的一些最关键的社会科学挑战的基础。GEODE项目的研究还将寻求了解教师的做法需要如何改变，以便利用这些复杂的地球动力学建模工具。通过设计和开发产生的材料将免费提供给除该项目概述的参与者之外的所有未来的学习者、教师和研究人员。GEODE项目将开发和研究嵌入学习进度信息的在线课程模块中的地球动力学模型的转化潜力，用于中学地球科学的教与学。该项目的主要目标是进行基于设计的研究，以研究基于模型的课程模块、评估工具和专业发展材料的开发，以支持学生学习(1)板块构造和相关的地球过程，(2)建模实践，以及(3)充满不确定性的辩论实践。Geode软件将允许学生将一系列地质事件编程到模型中，从模型产生的紧急现象中收集证据，修改模型，并使用他们的模型来解释与板块运动和相关地质现象相关的动力学机制，如沉积、火山喷发、地震和地层变形。该项目还将研究支持使用复杂现象的动态计算机模型和使用包括明确侧重于充满不确定性的辩论的课程所需的教师做法的类型。

The Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). 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 proposed projects. This project will contribute to the Earth science education community's understanding of how engaging students with dynamic computer-based systems models supports their learning of complex Earth science concepts regarding Earth's surface phenomena and sub-surface processes. It will also extend the field's understandings of how students develop modeling practices and how models are used to support scientific endeavors. This research will shed light on the role uncertainty plays when students use models to develop scientific arguments with model-based evidence. The GEODE project will directly involve over 4,000 students and 22 teachers from diverse school systems serving students from families with a variety of socioeconomic, cultural, and racial backgrounds. These students will engage with important geoscience concepts that underlie some of the most critical socio-scientific challenges facing humanity at this time. The GEODE project research will also seek to understand how teachers' practices need to change in order to take advantage of these sophisticated geodynamic modeling tools. The materials generated through design and development will be made available for free to all future learners, teachers, and researchers beyond the participants outlined in the project. The GEODE project will develop and research the transformational potential of geodynamic models embedded in learning progression-informed online curricula modules for middle school teaching and learning of Earth science. The primary goal of the project is to conduct design-based research to study the development of model-based curriculum modules, assessment instruments, and professional development materials for supporting student learning of (1) plate tectonics and related Earth processes, (2) modeling practices, and (3) uncertainty-infused argumentation practices. The GEODE software will permit students to "program" a series of geologic events into the model, gather evidence from the emergent phenomena that result from the model, revise the model, and use their models to explain the dynamic mechanisms related to plate motion and associated geologic phenomena such as sedimentation, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and deformation of strata. The project will also study the types of teacher practices necessary for supporting the use of dynamic computer models of complex phenomena and the use of curriculum that include an explicit focus on uncertainty-infused argumentation.