Each year the KBS LTER program awards graduate students summer fellowships. Here Elizabeth Schultheis and Melissa Kjevik, now both postdoctoral researchers with Michigan State University, describe the project their summer fellowship supported. Today it is apparent that students and the public continue to struggle when faced with data and its interpretation. When asked to make sense of data taught in their science classrooms, gathered during classroom inquiry projects, or found in the news, students are unable to connect quantitative information to explanations of the
Data Nuggets: small activities with big impacts for students
Guest blog post by Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) graduate students Liz Schultheis and Melissa Kjelvik The landscape of science education is undergoing a fundamental shift. Updated standards, to be followed by all science teachers in Michigan, emphasize that science is an active process: instead of the memorization of facts in textbooks, students should be taught the ability to generate new knowledge by testing hypotheses and interpreting data. In other words, students should be taught how to use the scientific method and make arguments from evidence. However, with the scientific
K-12 Partnership teachers travel to Alaska for research experience
In July and August of 2012, three K-12 Partnership teachers traveled to Toolik, Alaska to participate in a research experience as a part of the LTER Math Science Partnership. Marty Buehler from Hastings High School, Mary Grintals from Northeast Middle School, and Lisa Wininger from Plainwell Middle School all made the two-day trip up to Toolik to help collect data for the annual “Toolik Pluck.” The teachers spent long hours in the field and the lab collecting plant, soil, and microbial samples. The teachers flew from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Anchorage, Alaska, and finally to Deadhorse,
LTER Math Science Partnership in its final year
For the last five years, KBS K-12 Partnership teachers have been participating in a unique program that involves teachers, scientists, and educators at four LTER sites around the country. The goal is to promote environmental science literacy through the frame of learning progressions. In other words, the project has conducted research about how students make sense of important environmental issues and used that research to help teachers work more effectively with their students about these issues. This program – the LTER Math Science Partnership (MSP) – is a collaboration between four LTER