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Pedagogical Approach
The High School Estuaries 101 Curriculum was developed as a series of Modules for very specific educational reasons. AAAS Benchmarks (1993) notes that an overstuffed curriculum overemphasizes short-term memorization and impedes “the acquisition of understanding." A modular approach can help combat the difficulty of "a mile wide and an inch deep". Modules that focus on select concepts can facilitate deeper interaction with content and allow for project-based work.
Modules also offer usability advantages. Modules allow teachers to diversify their curricula by selecting standards-relevant content from various sources. The NSES Standards recognizes that integrated and thematic approaches can be powerful. Indeed, it is rare for high school science teachers to have the opportunity to dedicate a full-year or semester-long curriculum to the study of estuaries exclusively. However, it is quite common for high school teachers to incorporate several plug-in modules that allow them to cover standards and meet curriculum objectives in novel ways, through different perspectives, or with a particular focus in a topic such as estuaries.
The concepts within a study of estuaries can be woven into existing Earth, life, or physical science courses via plug-in modules by meeting standards and without contributing to an "overstuffed" curriculum.
Types of Experiences
Students learn best when they are immersed in topics they care about and are pursuing questions of personal relevance. The High School Estuaries 101 Curriculum Modules take advantage of this, embedding the learning in investigations of dynamic estuaries.
Specifically, there are three different types of experiences in the activities:
- Data analysis,
- Field experiences, and
- Classroom experiments.
In the data analysis experiences, students work with actual data collected at the estuary upon which an activity focuses. They analyze graphs, data tables, and maps for the purpose of understanding a broader concept, relationship, or system, just as the scientists who study the estuaries do. For example, in Earth Science Activity 4: Extreme Weather and Estuaries, students monitor and interpret the changes in water quality factors, such as salinity and turbidity, day by day as a severe storm approaches, strikes the estuary, and then dissipates.
In the field experiences, students explore actual estuary locations virtual and in person. The activities do not assume that teachers and students will be able to get outdoors and to an actual estuary for hands-on experiences, so virtual field trips are included, using Google Earth and other online systems. For example, in Physical Science Activity 2: Dissolved Oxygen in an Estuary, students use the Web to take a virtual field trip to two sites in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, where an interactive tool allows them to access various water quality sensors at different depths for the purpose of considering the relationships between dissolved oxygen and water temperature. In addition, the NERR system provides a range of award winning education programs, including hands-on field experiences for students, and the Estuaries 101 Modules are designed to complement and relate to such experiences if you are able to actually visit one of the 28 reserves around the country.
Finally, in the classroom experiments, students get hands-on with some of the various factors and conditions important to estuaries and to the data they are studying from those estuaries. Aspects of the estuaries are brought into the classroom, where variables can be controlled and changed, models can be made and manipulated, and experiments can be conducted. For example, in Life Science Activity 2: Nutrients in an Estuary, students create estuary models in which they artificially enrich both fresh and salt water samples with different amounts of nutrients, observe the growth of algae over time, and relate their results to the phenomenon of algae blooms in estuaries.
Scaffolding and Supports
In the activities, these experiences are scaffolded and supported by background information for both the teachers and students, since there is a role for reading and direct delivery of content in learning, as part of the overall process; by student sheets, which provide guidance through the experiences and ask both specific response and reflection questions to ensure that students are on track and are thinking about what they are doing and why; by assessment pieces for individual activities and for entire Modules, providing a means for both grading, as appropriate, and checking in with student advances in understanding; and finally by optional extension inquiries, which provide suggestions on how the concepts, skills, data, and questions addressed in the activities can be pursued in more depth by classes or individuals interested in taking their explorations to the next level.
Estuaries 101 takes a rich educational approach, with opportunities to engage a wide-variety of school and classroom situations and all types of learners in exploring the science and excitement of estuaries.
Design, Review, and Testing of the Materials
A great deal of thought and energy went into the initial design and development of the Estuaries 101 Modules. This involved extensive work on defining a scope, conceptual sequence, and detailed rationale for all of the activities; standards matching; the development of and alignment with core principles and concepts; and the identification of activity-specific learning objects.
In addition, the Modules were reviewed by NERRS educators and scientists at numerous stages during their design, development, and revision to ensure that the final activities are scientifically rigorous and meet the educational needs of the NERRS and the teachers and students with whom they work.
Finally, all of the High School Estuaries 101 Curriculum activities were pilot tested by teachers and students. Feedback was gathered from this testing, and revisions and additions were then made to the activities and assessments to specifically address the needs, desires, and realities of implementing the Modules within real classroom settings.
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Last Updated on: 02-28-2012
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