Naked Trees, Killer Beetles and Dirty Water: A K-12 Teacher Workshop on the Mountain Pine Beetle Infestation and its Impacts to Water in the Rocky Mountain West
Abstract
Researchers at Colorado School of Mines and Colorado State University were awarded a grant to study water quality and supply impacts from climate-induced insect tree mortality and resource management in the Rocky Mountain west. An integral component of this work has been the education and outreach campaign. We developed a community outreach program focused on hydrologic science education and related to the mountain pine beetle impacts to water. This effort targeted K-12 teachers and students, and provided experiential learning for undergraduate and graduate students. During the past 4 years, our program reached approximately 7500 students, teachers and community members across the Colorado Front Range. Additionally, an undergraduate science communication course on the same topic was developed. As a capstone for our education and outreach on this project, we focused our efforts on K-12 educators, hoping to result in continued teaching of these topics, maximizing the broader impacts of the project.
Our project team organized a weekend workshop for K-12 teachers focused on bark beetle infestation and the impacts to water quantity and quality in Colorado. This workshop was hosted at Windy Peak Outdoor Lab, a part of the Jefferson County, Colorado school system. Outdoor Lab provides opportunities for 6th grade students to explore and experience lessons in earth sciences in an outdoor mountain setting. The teacher workshop hosted 18 teachers that represented 7 districts in Colorado, spanning grades 2 through 12. Participants learned about the impacts of bark beetle infestation, including the causes of infestation, the impact of carbon and metal release on water systems, and the social science implications surrounding beetle infestation. The goals of this workshop included, 1) successful communication of the complex physical and social science that has been addressed throughout the life of the project; 2) collaboration with participating teachers to produce educational modules that address NGSS and would be effective tools in the classroom; and 3) to establish partnerships with participating educators for continued collaboration. Success was established based on educator satisfaction, workshop outputs, and potential paths forward, which will be discussed along with lessons learned.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMED11D0752G
- Keywords:
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- 0805 Elementary and secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0855 Diversity;
- EDUCATION