Initial Publication Date: February 12, 2018

Engaging Students in Understanding the Earth System as it Intertwines with Key Societal Issues

A workshop for high school teachers at Goldschmidt 2018

Hynes Convention Center Room 102
Boston, MA
Thursday, August 16, 2018
2:15-5:15pm

Convener:

Lisa Gilbert, Williams College

Workshop Overview

Bringing sustainability into high school classrooms offers a range of benefits to student learning, such as establishing relevance for your students and empowering them to begin thinking about society and the Earth on a broader scale. This professional development workshop is designed to help high school chemistry, earth science, environmental science, and physical science teachers infuse more societal relevance into their classrooms with InTeGrate teaching materials. InTeGrate materials challenge students to address interdisciplinary problems, engage in geoscientific habits of mind, work with authentic geoscience data and develop systems thinking. During the workshop, teachers will gain hands-on experience working with these NGSS-aligned, freely available materials and adapting them for use in high school classes.

Workshop Goals

The goals of this workshop are to support teachers in:

using new InTeGrate resources in a K-12 class,
incorporating interdisciplinary content in their classes,
encouraging their students to draw connections between science and society.

To this end participants are expected to:

In advance of the workshop, familiarize themselves with the resources and information available on the workshop website.
To optimize workshop outcomes, participants are encouraged to participate in all workshop activities, including pre-workshop preparations, scheduled workshop sessions, small group work, and follow-on activities.

Who Should Attend

This workshop is designed primarily for high school teachers.

For elementary school or middle school teachers, we recommend the Tuesday workshop.

Workshop Program and Format

This workshop will involve completing several InTeGrate activities, which can be adapted for use in your classroom. Although the teaching materials are freely available online, some instructor materials including answer keys and rubrics are protected. You can register as an instructor at anytime, but because it can take 24 hours to activate your account, we highly recommend registering before arrival at the workshop. Note: To fully participate in this workshop, participants will need to bring a laptop or tablet.

14:15-14:35 Orientation

Goals of workshop
Introductions
Overview of InTeGrate resources, guiding principles and NGSS
Introductory slides (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 90.7MB Aug16 18)

14:35-16:00 Using InTeGrate materials

Complete an InTeGrate activity in groups; de-brief
Practices Web (Acrobat (PDF) 101kB Aug13 18) from Nyman and St. Clair (2016)
Choose 1-2 units from an InTeGrate module best aligned with your interests. Divide into pairs or small groups to complete the unit(s). Materials provided.

Natural Hazards and Risks: Hurricanes Unit 1
Changing Biosphere Unit 2 (mass extinctions)
A Growing Concern Unit 1 (land use) and Unit 2 (soil properties)
Water, Agriculture, Sustainability Unit 3 (crops and irrigation)
Lead in the Environment Unit 1 (how much is too much?)
Climate of Change Unit 4 (Greenland ice)
Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources: The Carbon Cycle Unit 2 (Carbon game)
Search InTeGrate using the NGSS for additional units based on participant interest

Discussion: What modifications or additional resources would be necessary to implement the unit in your classroom?

16:00-16:10 [break]

16:10-16:40 Report out and discussion

16:40-17:00 Next steps

Search InTeGrate using the NGSS; explore additional resources and instructor stories
Write individual action plans

17:00-17:15 Wrap up

Summary
Evaluation
Thank you!

Additional Resources

A few systems thinking visualization tools:

Flint, Michigan:

Mass Extinctions:

GIS

K-12 schools can get free Arcgis online organizations, which has live data feeds embedded on maps. Also, people in the northeast, there is a geoscience educator day for using GIS in education. https://www.northeastarc.org/
Link to request: https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/education/schools/schools-mapping-software-bundle
Some ideas on how to use it, but would need to be modified for whatever lesson you are thinking of https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/education/schools/instructional-resources

Registration and Cost

Please use the Goldschmidt Registration form and the code Charles18 to register for this workshop. The workshop registration fee is set by the Goldschmidt Conference organizers at $95 for the full day for a limited number of K-12 educators and administrators who register by June 13 ($135 after June 13). In addition to this workshop, your registration includes access to a full day of professional development opportunities: mentoring over breakfast (meal included), morning scientific sessions, a mid-day plenary talk, and an evening poster session (refreshments included).