Education Commons^™

The Landscape Of Us Elementary Mathematics Teacher Education: Course Requirements For Mathematics Content And Methods, Brette Garner, Jen Munson, Gladys Krause, Claudia Bertolone-Smith, Et Al.

School of Education Articles

The adequate preparation of future teachers of mathematics is critical, requiring sufficient opportunities to develop both pedagogical skill and content knowledge. Yet, despite new recommendations for mathematics teacher preparation, we know little about the landscape of course-based learning opportunities in US elementary teacher education programs. To what extent do US elementary teacher education programs meet the Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics outlined by the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) for mathematics content and methods courses? Based on an a priori power analysis, we gathered a random sample of 291 higher education institutions. Within these institutions, we analyzed 736 …

Emotion, Place, And Practice: Exploring The Interplay In Children's Engagement In Ecologists' Sampling Practices, Kathryn Lanouette

School of Education Articles

In science education, there has been a sustained focus on supporting the emergence of science practices in K–12 and field-based settings. Recent work has elevated the integral role of emotion in sparking and sustaining such disciplinary practices, deepening the field's understanding of what is entailed in “doing” science. Yet even as we gain this richer understanding of practice, less attention has been given to the places where practice emerges. These places play a critical role in the co-emergence of emotion and practice, and while separate strands of research have elevated emotion and practice or, alternately, place and practice, rarely has …

Find The Bullseye: Targeting Conservation In The Candy Darter, Jemelyn Grace P. Baldisimo

Reports

Grade: 7th grade, ability to scale up to high school Biology Subject: Life Science

Determining a species’ risk of extinction using available data and spreading awareness for conservation of an endemic species.

Killer From The Deep!, Tor Mowatt-Larssen

Reports

Grades: 6-12 Subjects: Life Science | Ecology

Explore the deep-sea environment and biological adaptations to living in the deep sea through murder-mystery investigation and graphing activities.

Shifting Sands: Coastal Dunes In Motion, Elizabeth Davis

Reports

Grades: 5+ Subjects: General Science, Geology, Environmental Science

Students will use “before & after” dune profile graphics to determine how the dune has changed and hypothesize why this change occurred.

How Resilient Is It? The Resilience Quotient Zoning Ordinance, Qiong Wang, Yao Wang

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Environmental Science, Earth Science, Oceanography

The Resilience Quotient (RQ) system uses zoning ordinance to address coastal resilience development issues in the city of Norfolk, Virginia. This lesson plan goes through key resilience concepts and its strategies that can promote flood risk reduction, stormwater management, and energy resilience. The activity provides several scenarios to help students understand, simulate, visualize, discuss, and practice how the Resilience Quotient works for coastal developments in the city.

Exploring How Secondary Stem Teachers And Undergraduate Mentors Adapt Digital Technologies To Promote Culturally Relevant Education During Covid-19, Meredith W. Kier, Lindy L. Johnson

School of Education Articles

The COVID-19 global pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to K-16 educators, including the closing of educational agencies and the abrupt transition to online teaching and learning. Educators sought to adapt in-person learning activities to teach in remote and hybrid online settings. This study explores how a partnership between middle and high school teachers in an urban school district and undergraduate STEM mentors of color leveraged digital tools and collaborative pedagogies to teach science, technology, and engineering during a global pandemic. We used a qualitative multi-case study to describe three cases of teachers and undergraduate mentors. We then offer a cross-case analysis …

From The Subsurface To The Sky: Tracking Groundwater With Drones, Stephanie Wilson

Reports

Grades: High School Subjects: Earth Science | Physical Science

Determining the inputs of nitrogen to coastal waters from drone based radiometric temperature data.

Topics covered:

• Technology and radiometric imagery
• Drones in science
• Groundwater
• Nutrients / pollutants
• Water cycle/ Watersheds

Gelatinous Zooplankton In Biological Systems; Case Study: Salpa Thompsoni In The Western Antarctic Peninsula, Maya Thomas

Reports

Grades: 7th Subjects: Life Science

Teach about the importance of gelatinous zooplankton and examine their role in food webs, the biological pump, and the carbon cycle.

The Seagrass Is Greener On The Other Side, Lauren Alvaro

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Biology

Students will collect data about animals in a seagrass meadow, learn how seagrass density affects species abundance and diversity, and calculate a biodiversity index.

Selectively Breeding Hard Clams, Leslie Speight Youtsey

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Biology | AP Biology

Use knowledge of hard clam genotypes and inheritance patterns to cross parents and predict offspring phenotypes.

Shark Sanctuaries: Habitat And Climate Change, Kaitlyn O'Brien

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Biology

Utilize data collected from scientific surveys to explore the abiotic niche of multiple coastal shark species, and evaluate suitable habitats under differing climate change conditions.

Searching For Sea Scallops: The Role Of Science In Fisheries Management, Kaitlyn Clark

Reports

Grades: 6-8 Subjects: Life Science | Biology

Students will collect data on populations of sea scallops and then use those data to provide recommendations for sustainably managing the fishery in the next fishing year

A Call For A Humanistic Stance Toward K–12 Data Science Education, Victor R. Lee, Michelle H. Wilkerson, Kathryn Lanouette

School of Education Articles

There is growing interest in how to better prepare K–12 students to work with data. In this article, we assert that these discussions of teaching and learning must attend to the human dimensions of data work. Specifically, we draw from several established lines of research to argue that practices involving the creation and manipulation of data are shaped by a combination of personal experiences, cultural tools and practices, and political concerns. We demonstrate through two examples how our proposed humanistic stance highlights ways that efforts to make data personally relevant for youth also necessarily implicate cultural and sociopolitical dimensions that …

Fish Census: Monitoring Finfish Populations In Chesapeake Bay, Rachel Dixon

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Life Science | Biology | Oceanography

In this activity, students will utilize data collected from a scientific survey to explore where different fishes live in a coastal estuary, and how their populations change over time.

Migrating To Motherhood: The Story Of Female Blue Crabs In Their Ecosystem, Alex Schnieder

Reports

Grades: 6-12 Subjects: Life Science

This lesson guides students through an investigation of the migratory patterns of blue crabs, their life stages, ecosystem use by life stage, harvest, and human impacts to their population.

Marsh Migration Mania!, Emily Goetz

Reports

Grades: 6-12 Subjects: Life Science | Environmental Science

In this lesson, students investigate sea-level rise and migration of saltmarsh invertebrates in a "ghost forest."

Case Of The Stressed-Out Larva: A Study Of Climate Change Effects On Oyster Cellular Physiology, Annie Schatz

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Advanced Biology | Chemistry | Oceanography

Using a jigsaw puzzle approach, students will piece together the results of three molecular measures to understand how warming and acidified waters affect the health of oyster larvae.

Watercolors: Relating Properties Of Light To Organic Matter And Ecosystem Production, Derek Detweiler

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Chemistry | Biology | Oceanography | Environmental Science

Using properties of light, students will determine the source and composition of dissolved organic matter in estuaries influenced by different land types its subsequent relationship with ecosystem production.

Sunny-Side-Up: Temperature & Lobster Egg Development, Abigail Sisti

Reports

Grades: 6-12 Subjects: Biology

This lesson allows students to use math and science to characterize the effects of temperature on lobster egg development. Students will measure features of lobster eggs at different time points and plot how they change across development. This development will be compared between lobsters from different environments, and students will be asked to draw conclusions about how these differences may relate to lobster performance and climate change.

Antimicrobial Sensitivity Testing: The Search For Antibiotics, Amanpreet Kohli

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Life Science | Biology

Examining agar plates, students determining the effectiveness of antibiotics for fish pathogens.

Dial C For Collaboration: Finding Unknowns With Your Fellow Scientists, Brianna Stanley

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Biology | Chemistry | Mathematics | Oceanography

In the sciences, collaboration is key. This exercise allows students to explore scientific collaboration and how to use "knowns" to measure an unknown using a linear equation.

Etiology In Action: Identifying Aquaculture Disease Threats Through Data Analysis, Malina Loeher

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Biology | Environmental Science | Oceanography

How do scientists identify emerging disease threats? In this lesson, students will examine fish health, aquatic disease ecology, and aquaculture practices to answer this question.

High To Low: Exploring Estuarine Gradients, Cristin Wright

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Earth Science | Biology | Oceanography

In this lesson, student scientists will examine nutrients, suspended sediment, and phytoplankton level then plot their results to track estuarine gradients.

Growing Up Is Hard: Vertical Accretion In Salt Marshes, Alex Smith

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Biology | Environmental Science | Oceanography

In this exercise, students will use graphing to examine the importance of natural environmental feedbacks on marsh survival.

Cultivating Diversity Champions: Practices And Lessons From Two Nsf Geoscience Opportunities For Leadership In Diversity (Gold) Projects, American Society For Engineering Education

School of Education Open Educational Resources

The United States needs a diverse scientific workforce in order to tap fresh thinking and talent needed to advance the country’s competitive edge and economic well-being. This is particularly true in the geoscience fields, where women and people of color have been underrepresented for decades. Geoscience expertise is crucial to weather forecasting, sea commerce, air safety, protecting communities from wildfires and many other applications.

The National Science Foundation’s Geoscience Opportunities for Leadership in Diversity, which ran from 2016 to 2019, sought ways to improve diversity, inclusion and equity in the geosciences. Its five projects took different approaches, but all faced …

Using Long-Term Data From Antarctica To Teach Ocean Acidification, Patrica S. Thibodeau

VIMS Articles

There is a mystery to be solved! This lesson plan asks students to identify the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of ocean acidification (OA). Global oceans have absorbed approximately a third of the CO2 produced by human activities, such as burning of fossil fuels, over the past decade (Sabine et al. 2004). This accumulation of CO2 in the ocean has lowered average global ocean pH and decreased the concentration of carbonate ions (CO/ ) (Fabry et al. 2008). As a result of this OA, the carbonate chemistry of the global ocean is rapidly changing and affecting marine organisms …

What's In The Muck? Benthic Sediment Characterization And Community Structure, Cristin Wright

Reports

Grades: 9-12 Subjects: Biology | Environmental Science | Oceanography

Sediment classification and grain size can affect the types of organisms that live in the sediment. Some organisms prefer sandier sediment, while others love the fine-grained mud.

In this activity, students will classify sediment samples by grain size and plot their findings on a ternary plot. The students will then further investigate which benthic organisms live in the different sediments and which may be more resilient to a change in sediment classification.

Old Macdonald Had An Aquaculture Farm, Shantelle Landry

Reports

Grades: 6 Subjects: Earth Science | Natural Resources

With this activity, students will learn the importance of aquaculture and how it can be used to manage a resource.

Zoop Soup (And Poop!), Kristen Sharpe

Reports

Grades: 6-12 Subjects: Biology | Life Science | Environmental Science | Oceanography

Microscopic poops with a global impact!

Students learn about the ecological and global importance of zooplankton and their fecal pellets in the ocean carbon cycle. Students are guided through the scientific method while participating in an activity that simulates real sediment trap fecal pellet research. Students hypothesize where a sediment trap was set based on the "fecal pellets" contained in their sample, identify source species using a dichotomous key, count and weigh biomass of pellets, and graph and share results with classmates.