scholarly journals Modeling Tropical Diversity in the Undergraduate Classroom: Novel Curriculum to Engage Students in Authentic Scientific Practices

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (6) ◽  
pp. 417-422
Author(s):  
Jana Bouwma-Gearhart ◽  
Sarah Adumat ◽  
Allyson Rogan-Klyve ◽  
Andrew M. Bouwma
Keyword(s):  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Scientific Models ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Science Standards ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Tropical Diversity ◽  
University Instructors ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Science Educators

A feature of science is its production of evidence-based explanations. Scientific models can both provide causal explanations and be predictive of natural phenomena. Modeling-based inquiry (MBI) is a pedagogical strategy that promotes students' deep learning about phenomena via engagement in authentic scientific practices. Some university instructors have begun to facilitate MBI in their courses, notably those aimed at aspiring K–12 science educators who, per the Next Generation Science Standards, are encouraged to implement MBI. Yet exploration of curriculum and teaching with MBI in postsecondary environments is scarce. We detail a novel MBI curriculum implemented in a postsecondary ecology course that included students interested in future careers in education. The curriculum engages students in modeling why there is greater biological diversity in tropical than in temperate regions. This biological phenomenon continues to be of great interest to the scientific community. We briefly detail how the curriculum impacted students' understanding of participation in aspects of scientific practices and their comfort with facilitating MBI.

Use of Crime Scene Investigations in Anatomy and Physiology: Potential for Going Beyond Knowing in NGSS Dimensions

2018 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine L. Quinlan
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Crime Scene ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Science Content ◽  
Science Standards ◽  
Anatomy And Physiology ◽  
Twelfth Grade ◽  
K 12

To create and implement meaningful tasks that go beyond the cognitive processes of understanding and that integrate all three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is challenging for both educators and curriculum makers. This issue is compounded when considering a content-rich biology course such as anatomy and physiology that requires first familiarity and understanding before engagement in higher-order thinking. The use of crime scene investigations that encourages students to examine evidence even as they learn specific biology concepts can encourage meaning making about scientific practices and science content. This paper deconstructs the implementation of a crime scene investigation titled the “Jewel Heist,” created by the New York Hall of Science and implemented in twelfth-grade anatomy and physiology classes in a diverse urban high school in the northeastern United States. The NGSS, the Framework for K-12 Science Education, along with Bloom's taxonomy and Krathwohl's revisions, are implicated in this process.

scholarly journals Design of a Socioscientific Issue Unit with the Use of Modeling: The Case of Bees

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-107
Author(s):  
Blanca Puig Mauriz ◽  
Maria Evagorou
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Socioscientific Issue ◽  
Aim Of Science ◽  
Final Design ◽  
Teaching Unit ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Science Educators ◽  
University Science

A major aim of science education reform documents (Achieve, 2013) is for K-12 students to engage in scientific practices to facilitate a better understanding of the processes and the aspects of doing science (Bybee, 2014). In this design case we present the design of a teaching unit on a socioscientific issue (SSI) that can potentially engage learners in modeling and argumentation. The unit focuses on the controversy about the declining population of honeybees. The “Should we care about the bees?” unit engages the participants in the practice of modeling for explaining and arguing about the causes, consequences, and possible solutions related to the problem of the bees. Our unit aims to illustrate how to address the intersections between science and society and to promote scientific practices in science learning and teaching. Two university science educators from different countries worked together to design and re-design the teaching unit. Initially the unit was designed in order to promote the exploration of the socio-scientific issue through argumentation, but after an initial implementation we decided to focus on modeling the issue as well. The final design product is a seven-week unit. In this paper we discuss design challenges and decisions of using an SSI based unit that promotes learning and teaching SSIs in the context of scientific practices. 

scholarly journals Why Teach Science with an Interdisciplinary Approach: History, Trends, and Conceptual Frameworks

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hye Sun You
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Development Programs ◽  
Science Standards ◽  
Interdisciplinary Learning ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teaching ◽  
History Of ◽  
Science Educators

This study aims to describe the history of interdisciplinary education and the current trends and to elucidate the conceptual framework and values that support interdisciplinary science teaching. Many science educators have perceived the necessity for a crucial paradigm shift towards interdisciplinary learning as shown in science standards. Interdisciplinary learning in science is characterized as a perspective that integrates two or more disciplines into coherent connections to enable students to make relevant connections and generate meaningful associations. There is no question that the complexity of the natural system and its corresponding scientific problems necessitate interdisciplinary understanding informed by multiple disciplinary backgrounds. The best way to learn and perceive natural phenomena of the real world in science should be based on an effective interdisciplinary teaching. To support the underlying rationale for interdisciplinary teaching, the present study proposes theoretical approaches on how integrated knowledge of teachers affects their interdisciplinary teaching practices and student learning. This research further emphasizes a need for appropriate professional development programs that can foster the interdisciplinary understanding across various science disciplines.

scholarly journals Calibration: A Conceptual Framework Applied to Scientific Practices Which Investigate Natural Phenomena by Means of Standardized Instruments

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léna Soler ◽  
Frédéric Wieber ◽  
Catherine Allamel-Raffin ◽  
Jean-Luc Gangloff ◽  
Catherine Dufour ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Natural Phenomena

scholarly journals Contextualizing technology in the classroom via remote access: Using space exploration themes and scanning electron microscopy as tools to promote engagement in multidisciplinary geology/chemistry experiments

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Rodriguez ◽  
Veronica Jaramillo ◽  
Vanessa Wolf ◽  
Esteban Bautista ◽  
Jennifer Portillo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Space Exploration ◽  
Remote Access ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Technology In The Classroom ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Hands On ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Scanning Electron

A multidisciplinary science experiment was performed in K-12 classrooms focusing on the interconnection of technology with geology and chemistry. The engagement and passion for science of over eight hundred students across twenty-one classrooms, utilizing a combination of hands-on activities to study the relationships between Earth and space rock studies, followed by a remote access session wherein students remotely employed the use of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) to validate their findings was investigated. Participants were from predominantly low-income minority communities, with little exposure to the themes and equipment used, despite being freely available resources.  Students indicated greatly increased interest in scientific practices and careers, as well as a better grasp of the content as a result of the lab and remote access coupling format.  

Seneca's Scientific Fictions: Models as Fictions in theNatural Questions

2014 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 155-180
Author(s):  
Courtney Ann Roby
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Scientific Models ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Functional Mechanisms

AbstractSeneca'sNaturales Quaestionesexplains the causes and functional mechanisms of natural phenomena, from common sights like rainbows to exotically out-of-reach ones like comets. The vividness with which he brings them all within the reader's grasp is certainly a literary feat as much as a scientific one, but the rhetorical power of his explanations does not cost them their epistemological validity. Analyses drawn from current philosophy of science reveal elements of fictionality omnipresent in scientific models and experiments, suggesting an approach to Seneca's ‘scientific fictions’ not as failed analogies but as a sophisticated expansion of the tradition of analogical scientific explanation.

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