Earth Science Education – summer in-service for teachers 2009 – JUNE 8 - 12, 2009
TITLE: Changing Surface of Salt Lake County
BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION: This Earth science course coaches teachers to go outside and teach their students what they see. Teachers learn to “read” Salt Lake County landscapes. Course content includes Earth systems processes of tectonics and erosion/deposition and how these processes change global landscapes and landscapes. The course is taught outside using local places and vistas as outdoor classrooms.
SYLLABUS: CHANGING SURFACE OF SALT LAKE COUNTY
GOALS: Teachers will go outside with their students, teach what they see, and discuss how Earth processes change Earth’s surface. They will role model observation, curiosity, wonder, and knowledge of local and global processes, specifically, tectonics and erosion/deposition.
OBJECTIVES:
· The Overarching Objective is quality teaching: this course will deepen teachers’ content knowledge and provide them with instructional strategies to inspire students to learn more about their physical environment.
· Knowledge: Know how to observe landscapes. Distinguish (1) landforms, (2) materials of landforms, and (3) processes that change landforms.
· Comprehension: Understand general concepts of global tectonics. Understand sedimentation and its sub-processes: weathering, erosion, transport, and deposition.
· Analysis: Analyze landscapes of Salt Lake County, meaning, describe how and why components of landscapes change.
APPROACH: This course progresses from observation and description of landforms to explanations of geomorphic processes. It teaches how to view landscapes as evidence of Earth processes. On the first day, participants role model ways to encourage inquiry about landforms. On the second day, participants learn about global tectonics and local expressions of tectonic change. On the third day participants learn about erosion / deposition associated with climate including local evidence of climate change. The fourth day is a field trip to see examples of landforms changed by tectonics and erosion/deposition. On the fifth day, participants link science content to literacy and discuss what is meant by a sense of place.
PROJECTED OUTCOMES: After this course, teachers have increased confidence and competence to go outside and teach what they see. They can describe landforms and explain them as products of tectonics and erosion/deposition.
BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION: This Earth science course coaches teachers to go outside and teach their students what they see. Teachers learn to “read” Salt Lake County landscapes. Course content includes Earth systems processes of tectonics and erosion/deposition and how these processes change global landscapes and landscapes. The course is taught outside using local places and vistas as outdoor classrooms.
CONTENT: (a) Earth science concepts of tectonics; concepts of weathering, erosion, transport, and deposition; and (b) applications of concepts to Salt Lake County; (c) the geographic concept of a sense of place. It teaches how to view landscapes as evidence of Earth systems. Teachers distinguish observations from interpretations.
REQUIREMENTS: Participants must attend all five sessions. The course assumes an hour of homework for every class contact hour. Daily homework includes reading assignments discussed in class. The final project is to tell the story of a landform seen from the participant’s schoolyard or neighborhood. The story is for classroom use as content literacy appropriate to grade. The Earth science content of the story generally includes concepts of tectonics, erosion/deposition, and should convey sense of place.
GRADING: The grade for the course is about 50% based on the content-literacy project; 30% on homework and class participation; and 20% based on the participants’ ideas of how to use their schoolyards and neighborhoods to teach Earth science and a sense of place.
NOTE: Participants (current teachers) who complete the course the course receive approximately $50 of text materials and classroom supplies funded by Earth Science Education and Kennecott Utah Copper.
INSTRUCTOR: Genevieve Atwood, Ph.D., former State Geologist of Utah; and, presently, Chief Education Officer, Earth Science Education, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of Utah.
TARGET AUDIENCE: K-12 especially 3rd grade (appearance of Earth), 4th grade (Utah natural history), 5th grade (changes of Earth’s surface; landslides, glaciers and earthquakes), and middle school Earth systems. THEMATIC LEARNING: theme of change.
DATES, TIMES AND LOCATIONS:
|
DATE: |
TIME |
PLACE |
ADDRESS |
|
Monday, June 8 |
8:30 – 11:30 am OR 4:30 – 7:30 PM |
Flatiron Park (upper level) |
1675 East 8600 South |
|
Tuesday, June 9 |
8:30 – 11:30 am OR 4:30 – 7:30 PM |
Silver Hills Elementary |
5770 West 5100 South |
|
Wednesday, June 10 |
8:30 – 11:30 OR 4:30 – 7:30 PM |
Arrowhead Park – Jordan River |
598 West 4800 South |
|
Thursday, June 11 |
8:30 am – noon OR 4:30 – 8:00 PM |
FIELD TRIP: bus leaves from Hillsdale Elementary School |
3275 West 3100 South |
|
Friday, June 12 |
8:30 – 11:30 am OR 4:30 – 7:30 PM |
Silver Lake information center, Big Cottonwood Canyon |
Brighton opposite the general store |
NUMBER OF CLOCK HOURS OF CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION: 15.5 hours = 1 credit hour.
CLASS LIMIT: 30
REGISTRATION – THREE options, for information go to http://www.earthscienceeducation.org … CACTUS, SUU; WSU masters. P.L.A.N.
SPECIAL SUPPORT from Kennecott Utah Copper: Participants receive approximately $50 of text materials and classroom supplies.
OUTLINE OF CLASS SESSIONS:
Session 1: Recognize and describe landforms.
· Ask “why” questions… why various landscape features look the way they do
· Identify geologic and geographic features in Salt Lake County
· Practice thinking spatially. Discuss what is meant by a sense of place and geography.
· Experience directional yoga: stretch and point to cardinal directions and geographic features.
· Identify defining characteristics of Utah’s three physiographic provinces
· Discuss the distribution of Utah’s natural resources based physiographic provinces.
Session 2: Process Geomorphology… processes from within Earth
· Review distinguishing characteristics of physiographic provinces.
· Discuss map literacy, including how to teach contouring and how to read topographic maps
· Review evidence of continental drift. Discuss concepts of Earth’s magnetism, and isostasy.
· Understand how plate tectonics changes Earth’s surface.
· Discuss landforms directly attributed to tectonics including volcanoes and faults.
· Explain tectonics of the Basin and Range and seismicity of the Wasatch fault.
· Tell the story of Salt Lake Valley, the Wasatch Range, and Oquirrh Mountains.
· Discuss ways to introduce earthquake risk to children
· Discuss the theory of tectonics as an example of the evolution of scientific thought.
Session 3: Process Geomorphology… processes acting on Earth’s surface
· Review the process of sedimentation including weathering, erosion, transport and deposition.
· Recognize examples of sedimentation in Salt Lake County.
· Understand how the Jordan River and its tributaries are agents of geomorphic change
· Revisit directional yoga. Identify landmarks of Salt Lake County
· Review processes that change Earth surface: tectonics versus climate-driven change.
· Tell the story of Great Salt Lake and Lake Bonneville as evidence of climate change
Session 4: FIELD TRIP:
· Aggressively identify local landforms. Recognize that landforms are everywhere.
· Discuss concepts of relief and slope. Quantify steepness.
· Discuss how to teach students what they can see from their schoolyards.
· Discuss ways to “read” the changing surface of Salt Lake County,
· Apply major Earth systems concepts how specific landforms of Salt Lake County result from processes at work inside the earth (tectonics) and processes acting on the earth’s outer surface (erosion and deposition),
· Observe and compare the Wasatch fault and the West Valley fault zones.
· Recognize features of Lake Bonneville. Imagine Ice Age environments.
Session 5: Changing surface of Salt Lake County and climate change … Ice Age versus non-Ice Age
· Observe, categorize, and understand evidence of glacial processes at Brighton, UT.
· Review how closed-basin lakes are historians of climate change.
· Discuss evidence of global warming and associated climate change.
· Discuss teachers’ content literacy projects. Link literacy and landscape.
· Discuss student reaction to these concepts and content literacy approach.
· Share classroom project / teaching moments.
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES INCLUDE:
Collaborative learning (e.g. directional yoga, dance of continents; stretching of Basin and Range); Writing to learn (homework literacy project); Progressive development of skills (from basic geography to walking across faults, to explaining earthquake hazards); Role modeling inquiry (e.g. session of “why” questions); Assessment (e.g. participant evaluation of their own understanding); Learner centered, knowledge centered, and assessment centered exercises.
Based on research including but not limited to: National Research Council, 2000. How People Learn, Chapter 6, The design of learning environments; National Research Council, 2000. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards; Center for Earth and Space Science Education, 2002. Revolution in Earth and Space Science Education, blueprint for change; and Harris, M.T. 2002. Developing geoscience student-learning centered courses, vol 50, Journal of Geoscience Education, p 515-523. Outdoor classroom activities attempt to incorporate concepts of Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv, 2006.
Resume of the Presenter: GENEVIEVE ATWOOD – on file