The Lynch School of Education and the Urban Ecology Institute at Boston College are partnering with the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) to develop, test, evaluate and disseminate a year-long set of urban ecology course materials for use in high school-level capstone science courses. The standards-based materials emphasize locally-relevant field studies and incorporate principles of Universal Design for Learning and Educative Curriculum. Other features include (1) an on-line resource center that links to professional development resources, (2) a student-written urban environment newspaper called "Green Times," and (3) a writing support toolkit. Evaluation and research studies focus on measuring effectiveness of the materials in promoting content understanding, self-efficacy in science and inquiry abilities of students in urban high schools, particularly those from underrepresented groups.
(Note: This project was originally awarded to the Lead Organization, Boston University under the Award #0628143 and for the Funding Period: Sun, 10/01/2006 - Thu, 09/30/2010. Due to a change in institution by the PI of the project, a new award was issued: Award # 1110524)
