teaching - Earth Science Teachers' Association

TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 26 ● Number 3, 2001
will use throughout the curriculum. They begin to
wrestle with the problems of sustainability as they
investigate the growth in human population and
resource usage.
The second component of the curriculum centers
on the issue of how a community will meet the increasing
demand for electricity. The third portion of the curriculum
focuses on organism interaction, plant
adoption strategies, and impacts on the ecosystem due
to resource allocation in the Mojave Desert and Great
Central Valley in California. A fourth component of the
curriculum allows students to apply what they have
learned to their own local area. The activities that make
up this unit are interwoven with the other three units
over the entire year.
Earth science Pedagogical Practices
The structure of knowledge, the epistemic goals and
data-gathering processes within the Earth sciences
afford certain opportunities for learning science, learning
about science, and learning to do science. The challenge
is one that resides in the dual agenda of science
education – learning what we know vs learning how we
come to know and why we believe it. The challenge
represents the balance that is sought in the curriculum
between learning, on the one hand, the canonical
knowledge of scientific disciplines (what we know)
and, on the other hand, the epistemic structures and
social and economic application issues that arise during
engagement in science-in-the-making activities and
inquiries. The new Earth system database and technological
resources coupled with the new Earth science
systems framework, make possible project-based science
and extend inquiry-based opportunities not otherwise
as easily attainable in other disciplines.
Furthermore, the global, national, regional and local
environmental perspectives associated with Earth system
science have the potential to situate the subject
matter in meaningful and relevant contexts of study.
The implication is that inquiry instructional methods
employing model-based learning and reasoning activities
establish the grounds for best practices in the
teaching and learning of the Earth sciences.
The recent focus on science enquiry in the National
Curriculum (Scheme 1) suggests previous efforts to
infuse inquiry teaching approaches into science programs
have not made inroads on science education
practices. New research results have begun to shift the
perspective away from final form science to a perspective
of ‘science-in-the-making’. Driven by a consideration
of the revisionary nature of the growth of scientific
knowledge and coupled with analyses of the cognitive
and social practices of scientists, it is not surprising that
the focus has been on engaging learners in the conversations
and languages of science. During science-inthe-making
episodes, debates and arguments about
representations, models, evidence, theories, methods,
aims, are played out.
The Earth system science frameworks outlined
above can provide rich contexts for inquiry learning.
Earth system science is well suited to promote inquiry
conversations.
Working with Earth system science frameworks
Edelson et al (1999), have developed a set of curriculum
design strategies for planning and delivering inquirybased
instruction and learning. The strategies include
(1) using meaningful problems to establish motivating
contexts for inquiry, (2) using staging activities to introduce
learners to background knowledge and investigative
techniques, (3) using bridging activities to bridge the
gap between the practices of students and scientists, (4)
using scaffolds that embed tacit knowledge of experts in
supportive user-interfaces; (5) providing a library of
resources as an embedded information source; and (6) providing
record-keeping tools which allow students to record
procedures and store products generated.
In my own work, (Duschl and Gitomer, 1997) on
formative assessment learning environments we have
developed a whole class instructional strategy called
‘assessment conversations’. Here teachers select
examples of student work that reflect the diversity of
thinking or diversity of strategies. Then, the work is
shared and discussed to expose what the students were
thinking and what strategies were used to complete
the task. In this process of formative assessment, students
learn from seeing others’ ideas. The role of the
teacher is to choose the work that leads to attaining the
goals of the lessons. The five key features of our
approach to inquiry are (1) situating the curriculum
unit in a meaningful problem solving context, (2)
encouraging students to use multiple ways of showing
understanding (e.g., drawings, labeled diagrams, writing,
etc.), (3) engaging learners in the public consideration
of ideas (e.g., assessment conversations), (4)
employing formative assessment practices in three
domains – conceptual learning, representational
learning, and epistemic learning; (5) using scientific criteria
and curriculum goals as organizing principles to
evaluate knowledge claims.
Implications for Instruction
The Earth system science framework and the inquiry
models proposed by Mayer, Edelson, and myself challenge
ideas about the content of Earth science courses.
One shift is moving from the construction of scientific
knowledge claims to the construction and evaluation of
scientific knowledge claims. Another shift is from independent
activities that verify conceptual relationships to
sequences of activities/lessons that build and test conceptual
models and inform decisions about subsequent
inquiries and designs of investigations.
The availability of global databases and investigative
and communication tools coupled with the relevance of
environmental issues and the problems of sustainable
development enable the K-12 Earth science curriculum
to occupy a privileged position in science education.
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