Transcript Technology which furthers the goals of Environmental Education

Learning Technologies
which further the goals of
Environmental Education
Anna Switzer
University of Michigan
Pre-candidate in Science Education
My background
 B.A. in Physics
 Taught high school Physics
and Math
 Instructed Outward Bound
courses in NC Mountains, FL
Everglades, and Mexico
 M.S. in Marine Science
 Taught on board
oceanography school-ship
program
 Taught 6th graders in
museum program focused on
water quality
 Taught college-level Earth
Science
My goal
To see EE more mainstreamed in
schools
However, ‘no tragedies before the 6th
grade’…. (Sobel, 1995)
right lessons at the right times:
age 3-7: develop empathy
age 7-11: exploration
age 11-up: social action
EE in Schools is critical
Ideally, children will be exposed early
and often to the natural world
However, with less time spent outside
(e.g. Nature Deficit Disorder), we need
to take advantage of other learning
opportunities
Schools are one place where kids pick
up on important aspects of the ‘culture’
Introducing :
Project FLOW
Model-It
(Fisheries Learning on the Web)
(as part of curricula from hi-ce, UofM)
Worldwatcher
(as part of curriculum from
Northwestern)
 Making Thinking Visible (might exist someday)
Project FLOW
Designed by Michigan Sea Grant College
Program
15 lessons on www
For 4th-8th grade
Focused on Great Lakes
Each lesson aligned with state and national
standards/benchmarks
Assessment suggestions provided
Concept Development :

What do classroom
teachers need to be
successful in bringing
environmental
education into the
classroom?
 Lessons can be used
independently, but
build upon each other
if used in sequence.
 Enhance existing
content (inquirybased lessons -)
rather than creating
new materials
Three primary
units covering 3 of 12
critical areas of
need as
identified
by the
Great Lakes
Fisheries Trust:
Introduced species (Food Web)
Fisheries and Sustainability (Water)
Fisheries and Stewardship (Fish)
Standards and Benchmarks
Relevant sections from educational
publications were combed for
applicable science and social
studies content standards,
benchmarks and guidelines,
including:
 Michigan Curriculum Framework
 National Science Education
Standards
 American Association for the
Advancement of Science
 North American Association of
Environmental Education
 National Council for the Social
Studies
Standards and Benchmarks
Example
C4 - 1, from NSES
(National Science
Education Standards)
A population consists of all
individuals of a species
that occur together at a
given place and time. All
populations living together
and the physical factors
with which they interact
compose an ecosystem.
Suggestions for Assessment
provided
We recommend more points for
questions which require thinking
higher on the pyramid
(Bloom’s taxonomy)
Learning Objective.
Example: describe the difference
between herbivores,
carnivores, and producers.
Student Performance.
Example: Define herbivore,
carnivore and producer.
Recommended Points.
Example: 1 point for each
definition above (herbivore,
carnivore and producer).
FLOW Summary
Expected Outcomes and Impacts:
More teachers will have access to high-quality
Great Lakes educational materials for use with
their students.
By aligning these materials with national and state
standards teachers will be able to more easily
incorporate aquatic science material into their
existing science curriculum.
Model-It
Designed by education researchers/specialists
at U of Michigan
Comes in several flavors to match middleschool science curricula
Helps students construct understanding
Designed specifically for learners who are
unfamiliar with dynamic modeling and lack
mathematical or symbol manipulation skills
Generally, students have
unrelated tid-bits of knowledge
pollution
watershe
d
fish
Water in the
faucet
health
Deep and useful understanding
requires that ideas are linked
together
plants
rivers
farms
lakes
fish
pollution
Watershed
cities
water in the
faucet
wetlands
people
health
With Model-It
Students Build Dynamic Qualitative
Models to help answer the driving
questions:
What is the Quality of Water in Our River?
What Affects the Quality of Air in My
Community?
How Can Good Friends Make You Sick?
Value of Building Dynamic Models
Cognitive tool
Opportunities for students to engage in authentic
scientific practices
Allows students to build models of scientific
phenomena – a common tool of the trade
Active Construction of Understanding
Externalization of their thinking
Show Complexity
Make explanations, predictions, tests and
refinements
Make links between relationships
Models consist of:
-objects - “things” in
the system being
modeled,
-variables measurable
attributes of objects,
and
-relationships
between variables.
Students PLAN,
BUILD,
and TEST:
Analysis:
Does the model work as you thought it
would?
Does the relationship you observed
make sense?
How do the parts of a watershed affect
one another?
Does the model help you answer the
driving question?
Adding complexity
Worldwatcher
 Developed at Northwestern University
 Part of Investigations in Environmental Science: A Case-Based
Approach to the Study of Environmental Systems (year long for
high school)
 Cases all based on the conflict between growing human
population and decreasing natural resources
 Based on Learning for Use Model
 Motivate
 Construct
 orgranize
Scope and Sequence:
Three major units
Land-Use (8 weeks)
Energy Generation (12 weeks)
Water Resources (12 weeks)
One open-ended unit
Investigating the Local Environment
(4 weeks interspersed)
Role of Technology
Visualize and
Analyze Real-world
Data (Arcview –
GIS)
Simulation of
complex processes
 Surface Temperatures
Activity
Live demonstration with Worldwatcher………
Environmental Decision Making
Help students understand the role of scientific
evidence in decision-making and
systematically integrate evidence and values
in environmental decisions.
The process:
1.Identify constraints
2.Identify considerations
3.Map consequences
4.Identify stakeholders and effects
5.Weighting (values)/Trade-offs
Strengths of IES
Ambitious cross-disciplinary content
Case-based context that engages
students
Data analysis
Technology
Decision-making
Support for teacher learning and
development
Making Thinking Visible
Doesn’t actually exist
Combines technology and
Concept mapping
So that students thinking about
complex issues will be made visible to
the students and to the teachers in a
timely manner
Environmental Decision Making
Complex Mixture of Domains
(Science, Economics, Politics, Values)
No ‘right’ answer
It would be powerful to understand
how students bring these domains
together
Can do so using
Conceptual Cognitive Concept Mapping
(3CM)
(Kearney and Kaplan, 1997)
Assumed to both model external
environments and provide the foundation
for much of human thought (Kearney,
1997)
Allows for exploration of a topic in the
process of externalizing one’s perspective
But, very time intensive process….
WORD MENU
cities
farms
fish
health
lakes
mountains
plants
rivers
wetlands
pollution
recreation
people
waterfaucet
Run-off
cars
animals
This is the active space for creating
concept maps about a topic.
WORD MENU
mountains
cities
fish
wetlands
farms
lakes
plants
rivers
This person has begun to group the terms
by ‘clicking’ and dragging them into the
active space
pollution
recreation
people
waterfaucet
Run-off
cars
animals
health
WORD MENU
lakes
fish
rivers
mountains
animals
cities
plants
wetlands
farms
Grouping of all terms is now complete –
though a person does not have to use all
terms provided
pollution
Run-off
people
waterfaucet
cars
health
recreation
Parts of watershed
WORD MENU
Other Living Things
lakes
rivers
fish
mountains
animals
cities
wetlands
plants
farms
Labeling of the groups
Problems
pollution
Human concerns
people
waterfaucet
Run-off
cars
health
recreation
WORD MENU
Now the groups are placed in relation to one another and the
strength of the relationship indicated by the width of the connector
Watershed
Other Living
Things
Problems
Human
Concerns
n
Behind the scenes, an excel file is being created
to compile everyone’s data.
Term
#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
#001 #002 #003 #004 #005 #006 #007 #008 #009 #010
1
8
2
2
4
3
5
6
3
1
4
4
4
6
1
5
7
5
1
4
1
7
1
7
4
1
2
3
5
7 2,5
6
6
6
3
2
2
2,7
1
1
1
5 1,7
4
6
1
7
1
3
1
5
7
7
6
6
3
3
2
3
1
2
9
2
4
4
4
2
5
3
4
3
7
4
2
2
2
4
6
4
6
5
1
4
1
5
7
1
7
From everyone’s data, a correlation matrix is calculated
0.82
0.00 0.55
0.00 0.00 0.36
0.00 0.09 0.18 0.64
0.18 0.18 0.00 0.09 1.00
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.45
0.00 0.09 0.18 0.27 0.27 0.00 0.91
0.09 0.09 0.27 0.36 0.36 0.00 0.45 1.09
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.45 0.00 0.00 0.73
0.09 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.45
0.09 0.09 0.18 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.09 0.55
0.27 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.36 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.82
0.00 0.09 0.18 0.64 0.18 0.00 0.36 0.45 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.73
0.00 0.00 0.18 0.55 0.27 0.00 0.36 0.55 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.64 0.73
0.18 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.27 0.00 0.00 0.73
0.64 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.18 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.73
0.00 0.09 0.09 0.36 0.18 0.00 0.27 0.36 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.45 0.45 0.18 0.00 0.73
0.00 0.00 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.00 0.09 0.64
0.00 0.00 0.09 0.09 0.18 0.00 0.09 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.18 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.27 0.09 0.45
Using this correlation matrix, SPSS can be used to do
Hierarchical Cluster Analysis.
One presentation of HCA is a ‘dendrogram’.
Tight
health
recreation
waterfaucet
people
cities
farms
lakes
mountains
rivers
wetlands
fish
plants
animals
pollution
Run-off
cars
Loose
Why go ‘techno?
“learning technologies expand the
range of questions that can be
investigated, the types of information
that can be displayed, and the
products that students can create to
demonstrate their understandings”
(Krajcik, et al, 2000)
Questions?
Contact Information
[email protected]
www.miseagrant.umich.edu/flow/index.html
www.goknow.com
http://www.worldwatcher.northwestern.edu/