HR: 11:20h
AN: ED12A-04
TI: Teachers Learning to Teach Science by Doing Science at the University of Arizona
AU: * Mangin, K L
EM: mangin@u.arizona.edu
AF: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0088 United States
AU: Thompson, R M
EM: rmthomps@u.arizona.edu
AF: Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0077 United States
AU: Wilch, M
EM: margaret.wilch@TUSD1.org
AF: Tucson High Magnet School, 400 N Second Ave, Tucson, AZ 85705 United States
AB: Many departments across the College of Science at the University of Arizona provide the opportunity for teachers to do original scientific research. These programs either provide skills and curriculum that can be translated into the classroom or include direct participation by K-12 students with their teachers. This paper introduces three of the many unique programs that UA offers for teacher professional development. The College of Science offers a teacher professional development course to accompany a public lecture series that runs each semester on a different topic of current social and scientific interest. During the Spring 2006 semester, the series subject was evolution, with attendance at each lecture running in excess of 600. This fall, the topic is climate change. In addition to attending lectures and participating in group discussions with the speakers, the teachers conduct research into regional climate change using the Western Regional Climate Center's publicly available, web-hosted climate data. The teachers brainstorm about possible influences on the data other than anthropogenic alteration of atmospheric composition, and control for these influences in their experimental design as best they can. Such influences might include urbanization, instrumental change, and natural variability. The College of Science is developing collaborations with community partners, including a local high school science magnet and a high school in the Galapagos Islands. Among several programs created in partnership with Tucson High School, Science and Nature in Tandem for Youth (SANITY) brings science teachers and students to the Southwest Research Station to conduct ecological research of their own design including the investigation of the effects of drought and other physical factors on the biosphere. The Southwest Research Station is located in the Chiricahua Mountains, one of the so-called "sky islands" and a crucial cradle of biodiversity vulnerable to the effects of climate change and other human impacts. Each year, teachers from across the USA spend a month in the Galapagos Islands working with a local high school and doing their own research projects. This year the high school chose to study the effects of sewage dumped into the bay on plankton. Challenges related to working in a developing nation are discussed.
UR: http://cos.arizona.edu/
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0825 Teaching methods
DE: 0830 Teacher training
DE: 0845 Instructional tools
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2006 Fall Meeting