This Project's Vision

As a concerted response to the need outlined here, five states (California, Texas, Massachusetts, New York and North Carolina), a coalition of scientists and educators, and an experienced Earth Science curriculum team are creating a national model for a lab-based high school Earth science course. The course will comply with the National Science Education Standards as well as the five states' curriculum frameworks. The content will focus on Earth system science and environmental literacy. The lab experiences will feature a combination of fieldwork, classroom experiments, and computer access to NOAA data and visualizations, and demonstrate the rigor and depth of a true lab course. The first four topics we are addressing are hurricanes, fisheries, coral, and drought.

We will not write a new textbook. Nor will we re-invent one-day labs that are already well represented in standard textbooks. Rather, we will create a lab handbook with exemplary lab modules that last several days or more, engage students in deep and long-lasting investigations, enable them to explore the rich interconnections in the Earth systems, and involve a variety of inquiry-based experiences. The first four topics we are addressing are hurricanes, fisheries, coral, and drought.

We will help the partner states transform their Earth science courses into rich, challenging, 21st century lab science courses. This website is part of our effort.

NOAA has initiated the next step of this work by funding the first lab modules for this model course, focusing on the domains of oceans and the atmosphere and their connections with other components of the Earth system.