Earth Science

This article describes research from a clinical experience in a museum where teacher candidates engaged visitors in learning dialogs around objects on a moveable cart in an exhibit. We describe how working in informal settings and learning to use the affordances of that setting supports aspiring teachers to connect theory to practice in ways that developed Spielraum in that is student-centered, responsive to the needs of learners, and allows for the imagination future selves and classrooms that are conducive to maintaining these identities.

This chapter examines the affordances of museum resources in informal settings and how they shape science teacher identity.

Evaluation is an important aspect of science and is receiving increasing attention in science education. The present study investigated (1) changes to plausibility judgments and knowledge as a result of a series of instructional scaffolds, called model–evidence link activities, that facilitated evaluation of scientific and alternative models in four different Earth science topics (climate change, fracking and earthquakes, wetlands and land use, and the formation of Earth’s Moon) and (2) relations between evaluation, plausibility reappraisal, and knowledge.

Three middle school science curricular units on the topics of genetics, ocean biodiversity & discourse, and solar ovens & design critiques.

The American Museum of Natural History is offering a master's degree in teaching, part of a broad national campaign to add 100,000 science, technology and math teachers by 2021

Modeling and argumentation are two important scientific practices students need to develop throughout school years. In this paper, we investigated how middle and high school students (N=512) construct a scientific argument based on evidence from computational models with which they simulated climate change. We designed scientific argumentation tasks with three increasingly complex dynamic climate models. Each scientific argumentation task consisted of four parts: multiple-choice claim, open ended explanation, five-point Likert scale uncertainty rating, and open-ended uncertainty rationale.
We coded 1,294 scientific arguments in terms of a claim’s consistency with current scientific consensus, whether explanations were model based or knowledge based and categorized the sources of uncertainty (personal vs. scientific). We used chi-square and ANOVA tests to identify significant patterns. Results indicate that (1) a majority of students incorporated models as evidence to support their claims, (2) most students used model output results shown on graphs to confirm their claim rather than to explain simulated molecular processes, (3) students’ dependence on model results and their uncertainty rating diminished as the dynamic climate models became more and more complex, (4) some students’ misconceptions interfered with observing and interpreting model results or simulated processes, and (5) students’ uncertainty sources reflected more frequently on their assessment of personal knowledge or abilities related to the tasks than on their critical examination of scientific evidence resulting from models. These findings have implications for teaching and research related to the integration of scientific argumentation and modeling practices to address complex Earth systems.