Susan DeBari: Using Interactions between Water, Earth's Surface, and Human Activity in Geology and Everyday Thinking (GET) at Western Washington University
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Provenance: Susan DeBari, Western Washington University
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About this Course
An introductory geology course for pre-service teachers.
24
students
Three 2-hour lecture
sessions
no lab
four-year liberal arts
university
Syllabus (Acrobat (PDF) 160kB Mar14 13)
This course (GET) is an introduction to geology designed specifically for pre-service elementary teachers. It is constructivist by design, so that learning occurs through a series of guided activities, and focused small- and large-group discussion. Students work in groups of three at all times. It is through the student-led (but facilitated) sense-making discussions that concepts are developed. Concepts build through seven modules over the course of the quarter, so that by the end, students have a very holistic view of how energy and matter are transferred through Earth processes. The course was designed using the format and pedagogy of 'Physics and Everyday Thinking'.
Course Goals:
GET is one option for the three required science courses that all pre-service elementary students must take. All pre-service teachers are required to take Physics and Everyday Thinking, but many go on to take GET and then Biology and Everyday Thinking (BET). All three of these courses (PET, GET, BET) emphasize the same constructivist pedagogy, and all are focused on matter and energy transfers, using the same diagrams that map energy transfers. All courses have students formally track their learning, and compare their initial ideas to their final ideas in each module.
Course Content
Topics covered in GET build upon one another, and are developed throughout the following eight modules:
- How do we know about something if we cannot see, hear, or feel it?
- How do rocks tell us about Earth processes?
- Why does Earth have such varied topography?
- How do we know about Earth's tectonic plates?
- How does heat from inside Earth affect Earth's surface?
- How does the Sun's energy and the hydrologic cycle affect Earth's surface?
- How does energy and matter flow in Earth's systems?
- How do we know about Earth's history?
A Success Story in Building Student Engagement
I teach a geology course for pre-service elementary teachers that meets in 2-hour blocks three times a week with no lectures. It is constructivist by design, so that learning occurs through a series of guided activities, and focused small- and large-group discussion. Students work in groups of three at all times. It is through the student-led (but facilitated) sense-making discussions that concepts are developed. Concepts build through seven modules over the course of the quarter, so that by the end, students gain a holistic view of how energy and matter are transferred through Earth processes.
In the past, the course has focused on internally-driven processes (e.g., rock cycle, plate tectonics, convection), but has lacked emphasis on surface processes and the hydrologic cycle. This new module fills that gap. Units 1–5 in this module gave my students the opportunity to link their understanding of below-ground processes with above-ground processes, and more fully connect the rock cycle to internal and external energy sources (see especially Unit 5). Most importantly, it also allows them to think about the interconnections between people and Earth processes.
The cool thing about this module, and the course in general, is that these students, who are typically uncomfortable with science, find that they enjoy the experience of working with maps, data, and models. They feel empowered by the way that they can piece together their understanding through group work and class discussion.
My Experience Teaching with InTeGrate Materials
Teaching this module was a great experience. Our class had been focusing on big-picture Earth processes, such as plate tectonics and mantle convection as drivers of energy transfer inside Earth, and then transitioned to this unit, which focuses on the surface processes that more directly connect to their everyday lives. Students loved relating what they did with the stream tables to their own observations of rivers and streams (which are abundant in the Pacific Northwest!). They were also very engaged by the Google Earth unit, which, for many of them, was the first time they were able to see that the Nooksack River (which runs right through our county) is a changing system that starts in the mountains and ends at the ocean. Students were aghast at the small amount of freshwater available for humanity, as that is not an issue they think about very much here where it rains so much. The students are already pretty savvy about flood hazards, but they were surprised about what a "hundred-year flood" really means.
Relationship of InTeGrate Materials to my Course
My course is 10 weeks long (one quarter). It was implemented after students had completed six of the eight course modules (see side box for list of modules). This included the rock cycle, isostasy, and plate tectonics. The unit is followed by a final wrap-up activity for the course, where students map (on a large poster-sized cross section of the Earth) all the energy transfer processes that they could call upon from the course, starting with heat produced by radioactive decay of uranium atoms deep inside Earth, and with energy transferred from the Sun to a body of water.
Initial Ideas to the Unit
- I used about a half hour of class time to focus students thinking on the topics that they would be discussing. They think about their answers to the initial ideas questions on their own, then discuss with their small group of three and create a whiteboard illustrating their ideas which they share with the rest of the class. Initial ideas are meant to bring all ideas out on the table; they are not meant to be corrected or changed. Students revisit their initial ideas after they have completed the module.
Unit 1
- Students were fully engaged in the activities and the progression of ideas made sense to them.
- Students were very impressed by the amount of drinkable water demonstration. They had all overestimated how much freshwater was available for human use. I showed them a poster of this image http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/2010/allery/global-water-volume.html. Some students were utterly awed by the small size of the largest water sphere.
- Students also enjoyed learning about the source of their local drinking water (many did not know that).
- For Part 2A, the water bottle experiment with condensation, I had groups present a whiteboard on where the water came from on the bottom of the lid after question 2-1. One group of students had the misconception that the lid was leaking, but other students helped clarify that it was condensation. By the end of the discussion, a robust (class-derived) definition of condensation was made. An additional formative assessment probe about condensations can be found in Page Keeley's book "Uncovering Students Ideas in Science" (v. 5): Where Did the Water Come From.
- For Part 2C, I added a group discussion of the interpretation of the infiltration and runoff data.
- For Part 3, I added a group discussion of the answers to the summarizing questions.
Unit 2
- Students were fully engaged in the activities and the progression of ideas made sense to them.
- The revised version of instructions for the stream table should make the process go much more smoothly. In the small stream table, deposition features at the delta were shown quite well, but channel features (meanders, etc.) were not. I plan to complement this activity with a large stream table next time I use this module.
- I added a few more questions to Parts 2 and 3 to help students along.
- After Question 2-1 (but before Question 2-2), I asked students: How does water velocity change once water reaches the delta (when there is a shallower slope)?
- Before Question 3-2, I asked the students the following questions:
- How does slope affect water velocity?
- How does water velocity affect sediment erosion?
- How does water velocity affect sediment transportation?
- How does water velocity affect sediment deposition?
- I used a slightly revised version of the summarizing questions at the end of the unit. I asked the students "Explain the role of flow velocity in the erosion, transport, and deposition of stream sediment. How do you predict flow velocity to change in different parts of your stream table?" I had each group whiteboard their answers to this question, and share with the rest of the class.
Unit 3
- Students loved using Google Earth, and particularly liked the historical photos.
- The jigsaw worked very well. Students really liked comparing data for the two rivers.
I modified the activity to have all the students who worked on one river work together to produce a "consensus" description of the river profile (this was half the class in each group). They filled in the table, plus drew a concept sketch of their river from headwaters to mouth. There was a nice contrast between the two groups for the wet and dry rivers. One student noted that the mouth of the Rio Puerco was narrower than the midsection, and she said, "Oh, wow, is it that thing we modeled in Activity 1? Oh, infiltration!" It does really look like a nice example of infiltration at that location right near the mouth.
Unit 4
- I did not have enough time the first time I taught this, so only briefly had students play with calculating recurrence intervals.
Unit 5
- To fully implement this unit, students must be familiar with the rock cycle, plate tectonics, and isostasy. Students treated this as a summative activity for the unit. They also saw it as a way to link what they did in this module with what they had done earlier in the quarter, especially the rock cycle.
Assessments
I formatively assessed students based on their whiteboard class discussions, through informal questioning, and through the embedded assessments. I used the embedded assessment in Unit 5 as both a collaborative whiteboard activity, and then again later as an individual summative assessment question on an exam.
The embedded assessments included:
- Unit 1 summarizing question on the hydrologic cycle.
- Unit 4 homework assignment where students develop a brochure on flood hazards.
- Unit 5 summarizing question where students show their understanding of the linked nature of the hydrologic cycle, the rock cycle, plate tectonics, and associated energy diagrams.
Outcomes
My goals for the course were to have students understand that water is a limited resource on which humans depend. I also wanted them to understand that running water erodes and transports rock, shapes landscapes over time, and is capable of short-term flooding hazards whose affects can be characterized in advance. Based on my formative and summative assessments, students fully achieved what I had hoped for them. They also enjoyed the module and provided good critical feedback (they knew they were "testing" a new module).
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