Advancing the REVOLUTION: Using Earth Systems Science to Prepare Elementary School Teachers in an Urban Environment

Journal of Geoscience Education, Sep 2004 by Hall, Frank R, Buxton, Cory A

The three science content courses (Physical Science for Elementary School Teachers I, II, and III [SCI1012, SCI1013, and SCI1014, respectively]) cover specific interrelated science themes. SCI1012 is the fundamental course that is a prerequisite for the remaining science content courses and the teaching methods course. This course emphasizes the diversity of people who become scientists, the scientific method, and the role of teachers in the learning process for students, chemistry especially in regards to atoms and molecules, and solutions of water. The size, structure, composition, and age of the Earth, and the processes that impact the local environment are the Earth Systems themes included in this course.

Specifically, the students perform water quality analyses on samples from the lake. The data that they collect (Table 2) are compared with real-time data collected from a monitoring station operated by the Louisiana University Marine Consortium (LUMCON) and posted on the internet. Using data collected from Bayou St. Jean as the source of fresh water, and LUMCON data for a site within the Gulf of Mexico (salt-water source), the students develop a conservative mixing model for the lake (Figure 3).

SCI1013 emphasizes forces, energy, electricity, and magnetism. Isostacy, plate tectonics, the Earth as a magnet, connections between atmospheric and oceanic circulation and the impacts of major storms on the local environment, are the Earth systems themes presented in this course. During this course's field trip to Lake Pontchartrain, the students observe the relationship between wind velocity/wind stress on the surface features of the lake.

SCI1014 emphasizes waves and wave processes, including light and sound. Ocean waves, earthquakes, and marine seismic analysis are the Earth systems themes presented in this course. The field experience for this class has the students observing wave patterns on the lake, including qualitative estimates of wave height and speed, reflection and refraction, and 3-dimensional interference patterns made as waves interact with each other.

Course materials and resources are available to the students online using the course-development software Blackboard, and we point the reader to our website for more detailed information (an example can be found at homepage.mac.com/frhall).

Science Teaching Methods Course - The revised elementary science teaching methods course is now aligned with the science content courses, emphasizing locally contextualized earth systems themes, inquiry-based learning, student-directed assessment strategies and the integrated use of emergent educational technology. For example, the class takes several field trips to local urban parks and bayous, where students continue to study the central role that water plays in local and regional environments by conducting field-based wetlands site analyses, pollution analyses, and surveys of aquatic and wading birds. Using the knowledge, skills and dispositions they have developed across these courses, students then work to develop multimedia, interdisciplinary units, and field test sample lessons in urban elementary school classrooms. Having our pre-service teachers practice the kind of teaching that we have been modeling for them provides a valuable experience, as they come to realize both the challenges and the rewards of inquiry-based teaching with a localized Earth systems focus.