From the Bottom of the Sea to the Center of the Classroom - REVEL Teacher Falicitates Authentic Student Research in the Classroom.
Abstract
In 2000, as land-collaborator for REVEL teacher C. Maldonado while on an ocean-going research cruise, I got hooked by seafloor exploration, tectonic plate processes, and biological communities around hydrothermal vent systems. I decided then to bring deep-sea research to my classroom through participation in SEAS (Students Experiments at Sea) in 2003. But, to truly understand the scientific process, I needed to experience research myself. I was selected for the REVEL Project in 2004 and went to sea for a month to study hydrothermal plumes in the N.E. Pacific Ocean. While working with SEAS curriculum helped to introduce my students to authentic research, it wasn't until I experienced a research cruise and all the aspects of research on board that I felt confident enough to help my classes pursue and achieve the honor of sending their own experiments to sea. My 7th grade students wrote 2 proposals for the 2004 SEAS program. Neither proposal was chosen, but my students experienced the scientific process while collaborating with scientists as they wrote up results from experiments that had been implemented. The following year, my 9th grade class proposed to compare how water pressure at different depths affects various materials and different shapes. This proposal was selected and their experiment was deployed on the seafloor during an R/V Atlantis research cruise in April 2005. The material shapes (and controls) were exposed to increasing pressure at variable depths, including that of the seafloor. The results predicted by the students did not occur and the students submitted an "explanation article" explaining the possible reasons for the experiment failure and what they could better to prepare for a future deployment. Throughout the process students interacted with the scientists at sea. Despite the disappointing outcome of the experiment, it was a great learning experience for the class and an honor for all students to have their hard work validated by the deployment of their experiment on the seafloor. How many young people can say that they worked with scientists on research in such a remote environment as the bottom of the deep sea? I am currently at St. Joseph Catholic School in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and I am excited about bringing deep ocean research to this land locked state! Many of my students have never even been to an ocean shore! As I did in Washington State, I will be introducing them to oceanography and show them a world they have never dreamed of. These students are excited at the possibility of doing authentic research in the remote, deep ocean! In addition, I will continue to share my research-based expertise in teaching and in science with colleagues that might not have had the opportunity to do scientific research. My REVEL experience will continue to feed my enthusiasm for learning, and will spread as I entrain teachers and students in Arkansas to follow research cruises via the Internet. Research-based education is a window to worlds never before experienced by and often inaccessible to my students. My practice of research has given me the confidence to bring new research opportunities into my classroom and to serve as facilitator for students' research. Last year, I took high school students to Kitt Peak, Arizona where they made solar observations. They wrote a college level research paper on the magnetic field strengths of sunspots. And their paper was published in spring 2005 in the Research Based Science Education journal.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2005
- Bibcode:
- 2005AGUFMED23A1244Y
- Keywords:
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- 0800 EDUCATION;
- 0805 Elementary and secondary education;
- 0830 Teacher training;
- 3000 MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS;
- 3017 Hydrothermal systems (0450;
- 1034;
- 3616;
- 4832;
- 8135;
- 8424)