Tinghitella, R.M., B. Wilke, J. Schramm, and C.W. Anderson
Presented at the All Scientist and GLBRC Sustainability Meeting (2009-05-05 to 2009-05-07 )
Citizens are bombarded with science in the popular media, yet current levels of public understanding seem insufficient to evaluate and respond to issues such as global climate change. A recently funded Math and Science Partnership (MSP) titled, “Culturally relevant ecology, learning progressions and environmental literacy,” connects four broadly distributed sites within the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, including the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS). The MSP aims to develop learning progressions and teaching resources organized around three key environmental literacy strands: carbon, water, and biodiversity. Learning progressions are descriptions of increasingly sophisticated ways of thinking about a subject – they are anchored at the lower end by what we know about how younger students reason and at the upper end by what experts in the field deem students should understand when they graduate. Upper anchor citizens should be capable of applying scientific principles to decision-making processes and understanding, but graduating high school students and early college students frequently do not exhibit this type of principled reasoning. At KBS, the MSP brings together Michigan State University faculty, post-docs, and graduate students with teachers participating in the K-12 Partnership to develop learning progressions that bridge the divide between students’ informal worldviews and principle-based scientific thinking. The multi-site nature of this project facilitates incorporation of cultural differences and place based knowledge into the learning progression framework. KBS and MSU scientists are encouraged to participate in the MSP as speakers at professional development activities, RET hosts, and contributors to science content sessions.
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