Build it Green!: Enhancing Middle School Science Education through an Energy Efficient Building Design Curriculum

要在能源问题上采取行动，学生需要对能源流动和能源效率有深刻的理解。然而，学生很少有机会了解建筑物，如他们自己的学校，如何驱动约40%的能源使用和全球碳排放。为了解决科学教育中的这一差距，该项目将设计，试点和评估一个为期6周的中学课程，称为建设绿色！(BIG!).融合课堂体验和互动式数字学习工具，研究人员将与密苏里州的农村中学合作，实施和测试如何遵循能源流入和流出假设的学校建筑的故事，增强学生对绿色建筑科学中能源系统的理解。同时，该项目与农村STEM教育库默中心合作，支持教师对工程设计原理、能源问题和基于地方的教育的理解。大！将在农村教室颁布，并在一段时间内吸引大约600名中学生。其准实验方法侧重于评估学生构建和解释能源系统模型的能力，以及教师使用新开发的数字教学工具（如可视化）的能力。收集的数据包括学生绘制的校舍能源系统模型、学生态度和行为调查、学生和教师访谈、课堂观察和教师问卷。学生对大的理解！”的学习目标将通过他们的能量模型，解释和相关的规则系统来确定。这项工作的一个关键目标是比较学生的参与和学习的数字格式的大！和模拟格式的课程，在以前的项目，能源和你的环境（眼，DRL- 2009127）进行了测试。通过这种方式，该项目可以了解使用模拟而不是实际建筑材料的能量流指令的相对启示和限制。该项目的多学科研究团队包括科学教育，教育技术，建筑和建筑科学的研究人员。课程单元与下一代科学标准保持一致，以促进能源素养，能源使用和流动的建模以及系统思维。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），显着提高学前班学生和教师的科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。DRK-12项目中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究以及为拟议项目提供理论和经验依据的先前研究和开发工作的基础上。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

To act on energy issues, students need a strong understanding of energy flow and energy efficiency. However, students rarely have opportunities to learn about how buildings, such as their own school, drive about 40% of energy use and global carbon emissions. Addressing this gap in science education, this project will design, pilot, and evaluate a 6-week middle school curriculum called Build it Green! (BIG!). Blending classroom experiences and interactive digital learning tools, the researchers will work with rural middle schools in Missouri to implement and test how following the story of energy flow in and out of a hypothetical school building enhances students’ understanding of energy systems in the science of green buildings. At the same time, the project partners with the Kummer Center for rural STEM education to support teachers’ understanding of engineering design principles, energy issues and place-based education. BIG! will be enacted in rural classrooms and engage approximately 600 middle school students over time. Its quasi-experimental approach focuses on assessing students' ability to construct and explain models of energy systems and on teachers’ use of newly developed digital instructional tools such as visualizations. Data to be collected includes students' drawn models of the energy systems in their school building, surveys of students’ attitudes and behaviors, student and teacher interviews, classroom observations, and teacher questionnaires. Student understanding of BIG!’s learning goals will be determined through their energy models, explanations, and related rubric systems. A key goal of the work is to compare student engagement and learning across the digital format of BIG! and an analog format of the curriculum which was tested in a previous project, Energy and Your Environment (EYE, DRL- 2009127). In this way, the project can inform understanding of the relative affordances and limitations of instruction on energy flow that uses simulations rather than actual building materials. The project’s multidisciplinary research team includes researchers in science education, education technology, architecture, and building science. The curricular unit is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards to foster energy literacy, modeling of energy use and flow, and systems thinking. 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 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.