Earth Science Education – summer in-service for teachers 2008 – Register through Granite or Jordan School Districts. For university credit, register through Granite District.

 

TITLE:            Antelope Island – evidence of global climate change

OBJECTIVE: Teachers will gain compenence and confidence to use their school yards and neighborhoods to point out evidence of Lake Bonneville. Teachers first  examine relatively obvious evidence of climate change on Antelope Island. Then they recognize less obvious evidence in urban settings of the Wasatch Front and develop hypotheses about Ice-Age conditions at their school.

 

DESCRIPTION:

This course introduces the shorelines of Lake Bonneville and Great Salt Lake as precious archives of recent Earth systems history (geoantiquities). Evidence for global and local climate change will be discussed and geologic relationships will be worked out in the field. Participants  look for evidence of climate change and contrast conditions on Antelope Island 15,000 years ago with conditions just a couple dozen years ago during the 1980s wet cycle. Then they imagine the changed conditions at their schools of Ice Age time to the present.

 

REQUIREMENTS / DESCRIPTION OF EVALUATION COMPONENT:

Participants must attend both all day sessions.

Reading and homework assignment due the second class.

 

INSTRUCTOR: Genevieve Atwood, Ph.D., former State Geologist of Utah and, presently, Chief Education Officer, Earth Science Education

 

TARGET AUDIENCE:

K-12 especially 4th grade (water cycle, weather and climate; erosion; fossils, Utah history and 5th grade (cause and effect; reshaping Earth’s surface).

THEMATIC LEARNING: theme of change.

 

DATE:

TIME

PLACE

Saturday,

April 19

9:30AM  – 5PM

Meet at the Ranch House, east side of Antelope Island. (Allow sufficient time to get there…45 minutes from the Park entrance, 1.5 hours from Salt Lake City).

The Park will waive entrance fees for teachers who have registered.

PARTICIPANTS…should bring lunch and fluids. No concessions at the Ranch House. Wear sensible shoes and clothes. We’ll walk through some brambles and may encounter some mud.

Saturday, May 3

9:00AM – 5PM

Meet at the park entrance (east side of causeway). We car pool to several stops on the island, investigate evidence, and imagine climates of the past 20,000 years. Includes a long, 2-hr, not strenuous walk. Alert instructor for special needs.

NUMBER OF CLOCK HOURS OF CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION: 15 hours = 1 credit hour.

UNIVERSITY CREDIT AVAILABLE THROUGH SUU. Register through Granite District.

 

CLASS LIMIT:  40.

SPECIAL SUPPORT from Kennecott Utah Copper:  Participants receive handouts, maps, and CDs specific to Antelope Island and the Wasatch Front.

 

 

Syllabus: Antelope Island, evidence of global and local climate change

OUTLINE OF ALL CLASSES / SYLLABUS

 

FIRST SATURDAY: Bring lunch and plenty to drink.

GOALS: Review concepts of the water cycle and global climate change. Examine evidence of global climate change and local climate change along the Wasatch Front including Antelope Island. What happened? Where did it happen? Why did it happen? How do we know what happened. Examine evidence of the flooding associated with the wet cycle of 1980s.

Schedule:

9:30 AM Examine evidence of 1980s flooding

10:30 AM Water cycle, water balance, and Lake Bonneville

Noon Apply concepts to Antelope Island

1:30 PM Tell the story of the past 35,000 years for Antelope Island

3:00 PM Re-examine evidence

4:30 PM Self-guided return trip with narrated CD to park entrance.

 

HOMEWORK

Read written material about Lake Bonneville.

Write the story of Lake Bonneville for your school.

 

SECOND SATURDAY: Bring a sack lunch and plenty to drink.

GOALS: Develop and test hypotheses about the shorelines of Lake Bonneville and Great Salt Lake. Predict evidence of a significantly changed environment. Suggest ways to teach the Lake Bonneville story.

9:00 AM. At the east end of the Antelope Island – Syracuse causeway. Review shorelines

9:30 AM. Car pool.

10:00 AM – 1:30 PM. Long, leisurely, not-strenuous hike around northern point of the island.  Includes break for lunch on the rocks.

1:30 – 3 PM Discuss evidence of climate change in urban areas of Wasatch Front.

3 PM – 5 PM. Drive to places on Antelope Island and examine diverse evidence of Lake Bonneville.

 

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES INCLUDE:

            Collaborative learning (e.g. skit of Lake Bonneville’s rise and fall); Writing to learn (homework literacy project); Progressive development of skills (from walkabout along active shoreline, to application at other island locations, to personalizing the story for their own schoolyard); Role modeling teacher as investigator (predicting evidence of geoantiquities); 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.

            This in-service is the subject of an article in the Journal of Geoscience Education published by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, November, 2004: Atwood, Chan, and Felton “Teacher workshop using geoantiquities: case history of modern Great Salt Lake and Pleistocene Lake Bonneville shorelines, Utah.”