Projects

Through integration of research and education, this project is providing high resolution data on the spatial distribution of the thermal state of permafrost in Alaska, improving the general knowledge of Earth's climatic patterns, bringing science to remote Alaskan villages, and providing an opportunity for younger generations to take part in understanding Earth's climatic and hydrologic systems.

This project augmenting the traditional professional development model with an online professional development platform—the Active Physics Teacher Community—that provides just-in-time support for teachers as they are enacting targeted units of the Active Physics curriculum. Teachers are helped in preparing lessons by providing them with formal instruction related to the lessons they are teaching in the classroom. In addition, teachers can participate in a moderated forum where they can share experiences.

This project uses Antarctic pack-ice penguins to hook students into exploring how science investigates changes in Earths biota and climate. The project builds on a pilot effort, called Penguin Science, and will develop PowerPoint presentations, short video \"webisodes,\" background reading material, and live and interactive website components to engage students in ongoing field research. Students, K-14, will be involved in climate-change research that will include ecology, sedimentology, paleontology, glaciology and oceanography.

This project develops resources to facilitate the involvement of college and university physics departments in the professional development of K-12 teachers of physics and physical science. Research investigates how students and teachers learn content and reasoning skills for applying concepts to real world situations; how teachers can learn content in a way that helps them promote student learning; and how teachers can learn to assess student understanding in a way that promotes student learning.

This project aims to improve professional development programs for pre-service teachers (PSTs) as a way to improve student learning in mathematics and science. PSTs engage in a series of teaching cycles, and then engage in lesson study groups to develop, teach, and analyze a whole-class lesson. The cycle is completed by reexamining students' knowledge in teaching experiments with pairs of students. These teaching cycles are called Iterative Model Building (IMB).

This project is developing a set of instructional materials that engages students and teachers in the science of coupled natural human (CNH) systems. Teacher guides, a website and multimedia resources accompany the four student modules (which focus on an urban watershed, an urban/agricultural system, Amazonia and a polar system).