The teacher as a responsive, reflective professional: A ...



The teacher as a responsive, reflective professional: A partner in learning

EVS 380/580: EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE FOR

MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS

(Prerequisites: GEO 100/101 or permission of the instructor)

Course Description

Earth system science integrates the knowledge of several academic fields into the study of our planet and its global environmental problems. The Earth system consists of four spheres – the lithosphere (plus subterranean layers), hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere – which are all related in a complex and continuously interacting whole. Our planet’s role in its solar system also impacts the Earth system. Because this course is directed toward Ohio middle school science teachers, the topics covered have been aligned with the 4th – 9th grade “grade-level indicators” for the State of Ohio Academic Content Standards for Earth and Space Sciences. Finally, the course models good pedagogy including inquiry-based learning and performance assessments. A part of the model of good pedagogy includes an introduction to the federally-funded, inquiry-based, student/scientist partnership program called GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation for the Benefit of the Environment.)

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Number of Credit Hours: 5 semester hours.

Instructors

Co-Instructor: Tarun K. Mal, Ph.D.

Office: SI 233

Phone: (216) 687-2444

Email: t.mal@csuohio.edu

Office Hours: Thurs 10-11 or anytime by appointment.

Co-Instructor: Ruth Bombaugh, Ph.D.

Office: RT 1327

Phone: (216) 687-2394

Email: r.bombaugh@csuohio.edu

Office Hours: Monday 1-4 pm, Tues 8-11 am or anytime by appointment

Course Texts:

Tarbuck, E.J. & Lutgens, F.K. (2003) Earth Science (Tenth Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Tarbuck, E.g., Lutgens, F.K & Pinzke, K.G. (2003). Applications & Investigations in Earth Science (Fourth Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Tentative Schedule for “Earth System Science for Middle School Teachers” - Fall Semester 2003

Assignments and Readings Due

Experiential Learning & Lab

Week 1

Monday

August 25th

Overview of the syllabus (in class reading).

Introduction to Earth System Science (in class).

Introduction to GLOBE (in class).

GLOBE atmosphere protocols

(Current, max/min temperature, precipitation, humidity, pressure)

Wednesday

August 27th

Chapter 15: “The Atmosphere: Composition, Structure, and Temperature.”

(Written quiz on chapter 15 and performance assessment on current, max/min temperature, precipitation, humidity and pressure protocols).

Exercise 13: “Atmospheric Heating”

Week 2

Monday

September 1st

Labor Day Holiday – no classes held at CSU

Labor Day Holiday

Wednesday

September 3rd

Chapter 16: “Moisture, Clouds, and Precipitation”

(Written quiz on chapter 16.)

GLOBE cloud cover and cloud type protocols. GLOBE activity on cloud cover.

Sign-up for unit topic/group.

Week 3

Monday

September 8th

Chapter 17: “Air Pressure and Wind”

(Written quiz on chapters 17 and performance assessment on cloud cover and identification).

Exercise 14: “Atmospheric Moisture, Pressure, and Wind”

Wednesday

September 10th

Chapter 18: “Weather Patterns and Severe Storms”

(Written quiz on chapter 18.)

Exercise 15: “Air Masses, the Middle-Latitude Cyclone, and Weather Maps”

Week 4

Monday

September 15th

Chapter 19: “Climate”

(Written quiz on chapter 19 and performance assessment on weather maps)

Introduction to GLOBE’s Quantitative Land Cover/Biology Protocols, MUC Classification & Tree Keying.

Wednesday

September 17th

(Performance assessment on MUC Classifications and tree identifications.)

GLOBE Quantitative Land Cover/Biology Protocols

Week 5

Monday

Sept. 22nd

Chapter 3: “Weathering, Soil and Mass Wasting”

(Written quiz on chapter 3 and performance assessment on GLOBE Land Cover Protocols)

GLOBE Soil Protocols.

Wednesday

September 24th

(Written assessment on soil characterization)

GLOBE Soil Protocols cont.

Week 6

Monday

September29th

Chapter 4: “Running Water and Groundwater”

(Written quiz on chapter 4 and performance assessment on GLOBE soil protocols)

GLOBE Hydrology Protocols

Wednesday

October 1st

(Performance assessment on GLOBE Hydrology Protocols)

Exercise 4: “Shaping Earth’s Surface – Running Water and Groundwater”

Week 7

Monday

October 6th

Chapter 6: “Earthquakes and Earth’s Interior”

(Written quiz on chapter 6)

Exercise 8: “Earthquakes and Earth’s Interior”

Wednesday

October 8th

MIDTERM – written test on Chapters 3, 4, 6, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 and GLOBE protocols.

Week 8

Monday

October 13th

Columbus Day Holiday – no CSU classes held

Columbus Day Holiday

Wednesday

October 15th

Chapter 5: “Glaciers, Deserts, and Wind”

(Written quiz on chapter 5)

Exercise 16: “Global Climates and the Human Impact”

Week 9

Monday

October 20th

Chapter 7: “Plate Tectonics”

(Written quiz on chapter 7).

Exercise 3: “Introduction to Aerial Photographs and Topographic Maps”

Wednesday

October 22nd

(Performance assessment on topographic maps)

1st polished lesson presentation in groups of 4 w/ critique sheets.

Week 10

Monday

October 27th

Chapter 8: “Volcanoes and Other Igneous Activity”

(Written quiz on chapter 8)

Exercise 7: “Geologic Maps and Structures”

Wednesday

October 29th

(Performance assessment on geologic maps and structures).

2nd polished lesson presentation in groups of 4 w/ critique sheets.

Week 11

Monday

November 3rd

Chapter 1: “Minerals: Building Blocks of Rocks”

(Written quiz on chapter 1.)

Exercise 1: “The Study of Minerals.”

Wednesday

November 5th

(Performance assessment on minerals.)

Exercise 22: “Location and Distance on Earth”

Week 12

Monday

November 10th

Chapter 2: “Rocks: Materials of the Solid Earth”

(Quiz on chapter 2).

Exercise 2: “Common Rocks”

Wednesday

November 12th

(Performance assessment on common rocks).

3rd polished lesson presentation in groups of 3 w/ critique sheets.

Week 13

Monday

November 17th

Chapter 9: “Mountain Buidling”

(Quiz on chapter 9).

Exercise 12: “Earth-Sun Relations”

Wednesday

November 19th

Chapter 20: “Origin of Modern Astronomy”

Planetarium visit to Lake Erie Nature and Science Center in Bay Village, OH.

Week 14

Monday

November 24th

Chapter 21: “Touring our Solar System”

(Quiz on chapters 20 and 21.)

Exercise 17: “Astronomical Observations”

Wednesday

November 26th

(Turn in final, polished unit along with previous drafts, critique sheets and response sheets.

Graduate students only: turn in reflection paper.)

Exercise 18: “Patterns in the Solar System”

Week 15

Monday

December 1st

Chapter 22: Light, Astronomical Observations, and the Sun”

(Quiz on chapter 22.)

Exercise 19: “Planet Positions”

Wednesday

December 3rd

Chapter 23: “Beyond Our Solar System”

(Quiz on chapter 23.)

Exercise 20: “The Moon and Sun”

Week 16

Final Exam – please check Fall 2003 Course Bulletin for exact date and time.

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Course Activities and Assessment (I.e., Further Information on Assignments):

A. Attendance requirements for experiential learning:

Success in this course is heavily dependent upon each student’s level of active involvement in class activities, group discussion and course assignments. This class is based on experiential learning; therefore, absences should only occur under the most pressing of emergencies such as an unforeseen medical situation. Since the experiential in-class assignments cannot be made up, each unexcused absence could result in as much as one grade reduction (e.g., from an A- to a B+). Also, no assignments will be accepted late. I.e., the professional world of the teacher demands responsibility on a professional level.

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B. Text Readings and Chapter quizzes:

Chapter quizzes occur during the first 10 minutes of each class a chapter is due. (Please be on time – the quizzes cannot be made up later.) This course is content-rich and keeping up in the reading material is essential for success. Time management is essential and we will offer “literature circles” to help you assimilate the material. The quizzes will consist of a mixture of short answer, multiple choice, and true and false questions. Accessing the textbook’s website and practicing with the questions for each chapter may be a very effective way to prepare for the quizzes.

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C. Notes on Internet Assignments:

A special part of this new course is the use of the Internet. We hope as the course progresses, each of you will discover that cyberspace is truly a wonderful invention of the human mind and it is our hope that your experiences will be positive ones. The future of education and knowledge is there - We think it is important for everyone to develop a positive image of the potential of this medium and work toward that end rather than the gross commercialism of the past few years.

The first Internet assignment will help you gain a facility for compressing images and archiving them as well as learning how to make an animation. The second and third Internet assignments involve making animations of data which have been first gathered by satellites and then chunked together by very sophisticated NASA programs. These data summarize an amazing amount of information and when turned into an animation, visual learners can “see” much more than static representations of tables or even pictures might otherwise convey. The ability to make animations (“movies!”) on desk-top computers has been greatly simplified in recent years and suddenly is now available FREE on all MAC’s and even the IBM-compatible machines that contain XP. (Also, the IBM-compatible machines that have Windows98 and higher can download “movie-maker” free.) Our goal is to help you make your own animations so that you can helpy your student have the same fun and learning experience in your own classrooms.

We think of it this way: We want to give you some practical experience assimilating and synthesizing Internet information available to you. It is very easy when "surfing the 'net" to become a passive observer and allow images to flood your eyes without really taking any time to interpret their meaning. An important goal of this course is to learn to utilize the power of the Internet as a means of disseminating information and learning about the world around us. Hopefully, the Internet assignments will engage you, entice you to slow down as you travel cyberspace and become active observers - able to absorb the images and text, process it through your mind and come to a greater understanding of Earth processes.

In addition, by using real data from real world observations throughout this course, we hope you will be able to gain an appreciation of the complexity of our planet. Perhaps you will discover something about the manner by which scientists acquire knowledge. Perhaps you will discover some of the techniques of recognizing order or process from observations of a dynamic environment. Perhaps you will discover the importance of visualization for understanding complex systems. Perhaps you will discover that real data can be ambiguous, contradictory or sufficiently confusing that it defies rational attempts at interpretation. Perhaps you will discover that scientists do not know everything - we are often surprised by the results of various observations. And these surprises themselves often catalyze investigations which result in new knowledge.

Finally, a word of caution: the Internet is becoming a very busy place and during peak hours (typically lunch times, late afternoon through early evening) network traffic can significantly slow down access to sites, especially those which are graphics-intensive. In addition, the network can be capricious - it will become unavailable at the most inopportune times (like shortly before you have a writing assignment due). As such, you should be aware of these limitations and adjust your work schedule accordingly. DON'T PROCRASTINATE! and definitely, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE TECHNOLOGY!

The Internet assignments for this course are not intended to be a burden to you, but instead, a process whereby you may come to realize the power within yourself to understand the world around us. I hope you will approach each assignment with a sense of curiosity and wonder about what may be discovered at the end. And in that process, perhaps you will discover what it is to be curious - to be analytical - to be expressive - to be conscious - to be human.

(Note: the Internet assignments can be found at

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D. Performance Assessment and Criteria:

Summary/report pages follow each of the lab activities. These are due at the end of the lab session. Besides the summary/report pages, some follow-up assessments are also listed in the class schedule. After performing Exercise 7 “Geologic Maps and Structures,” for example, students will be tested the next class period on their ability to interpret a simple geologic map with some of the same features (strike, dip, symmetrical anticline, normal fault, axial plane, left-lateral fault etc.) that they were using in the lab activity.

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GLOBE protocols will be tested on the class day following the students’ introduction and practice using the protocols. There are approximately 20 GLOBE protocols divided up in the four core areas of soil, atmosphere, hydrology, and land cover. Each student is expected to be able to perform the protocol (with reference to their GLOBE Teacher Manual) and input the data collected on the GLOBE website.

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The midterm exam will include both a written and hands-on component on all material assigned up to that date. The written questions will include short answer, true and false, multiple choice and at least one essay question. The hands-on component will not include anything that has not been hands-on assessed previously.

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The unit plan will be assessed in three ways; two of the assessments will be individually-based and the third assessment will be a group grade. The first assessment will be based purely on participation – each student will have to be present to critique their fellow team-members’ lessons and also present his/her own lesson including a complete written draft. The second grade will be based on the particular three lessons that the student has prepared and polished as a part of the unit plan. The third grade will be for the overall unit plan completed in a team of four. A rubric for the lesson plans and unit are included in the appendix to this syllabus.

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A reflective paper is an assignment only for graduate students (in-service teachers). The paper can be either a report and reflection on the implementation of a part of the GLOBE program in the classroom or it can be a report and reflection on the classroom implementation of the three lesson plans which the student (teacher) crafted for the course assignment of a unit plan. If the graduate student is not currently teaching in his/her own classroom, he/she will be required to help another teacher implement the GLOBE program and will write his/her reflection paper on that experience.

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The final exam will consist of written questions over all course material. The questions will include short-answer, true and false, multiple choice and at least two essays.

Course Grading: Weight of Assignments and Grading Scale

The weight of assignments are as follow:

Each chapter quiz is worth 12 points for a total of 216 points.

1. Each lab report is worth 10 points for a total of 160 points.

2. Each GLOBE protocol checkpoint (one for each core area) is worth 20 points for a total of 80

3. The midterm is worth 75 points

4. The participation points of the unit plan is worth 10 each day for a total of 30 points

5. Each of the three individual lesson plans is worth 30 points for a total of 90 points

6. The group-graded unit plan is worth 30 points

7. The final exam is worth 75 points

8. The reflective paper for the graduate students (in-service teachers) is worth 50 points

2. Each of the Internet assignments is worth 25 points for a total of 75 points.

The grading scale is as follows:

Graduate Level:

95-100% = A

90-94% = A-

88-89% = B+

83-87% = B

80-82% = B-

70-79% = C

0 - 69% = F

Undergraduate Level:

95-100% = A

90-94% = A-

88-89% = B+

83-87% = B

80-82% = B-

78-79% = C+

70-77% = C

60-69% = D

0 – 59% = F

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