Geology (42) Although science museums are a remarkable resource for secondary earth science education, at the undergraduate level they remain underutilized. This proposal seeks to remedy this by creating a partnership between the Science Museum of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota to integrate museum resources with regional undergraduate programs. Two laboratory modules, built about interactive museum exhibits, are being constructed, assessed and revised. Students are able to complete these modules independently without any support from instructors or museum staff. This 'plug and play' design allows the modules to be incorporated into existing curriculums with minimal effort. One module explores how animals' skeletal design reflects their lifestyle and evolutionary lineage, while the other utilizes a new visualization technology. 'Rain Table' technology allows students to interactively simulate water flow across any part of the Earth's surface. This allows them to contrast flow across fluvial-sculpted landscapes with flow in urban settings or across landscapes modified by non-fluvial processes, such as glacial areas or karst terrain. Each of these modules also targets common misconceptions and explicitly discusses the basis, design and limitations of the relevant scientific models.
The intellectual merit of the proposed activity is that it can transform the way museums and undergraduate programs collaborate, creating a potent educational partnership to improve and expand traditional earth science curriculums. Assessment activities for both modules will move beyond their educational efficacy to document students' prior knowledge, identify misconceptions and develop effective methods to correct misconceptions. In the case of 'Rain Table' assessment will also determine how the visualization system itself alters students' comprehension of water flow compared to traditional maps. Although focused on earth science, these educational research outcomes have relevance to all areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. Within the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, there are a score of undergraduate institutions that can immediately adopt the proposed modules, but the broader impacts of the proposed project is that its concept, practices and products can be adapted across a broad spectrum of disciplines in any urban area hosting a science museum. Moreover, as the modules are designed for the introductory undergraduate level, high school programs, home-schooled students, educator workshops and the general public can also utilize them and the Science Museum of Minnesota already has infrastructure in place to disseminate the modules to this broader community. Finally, for both merit and impact, the proposal introduces a new cutting-edge visualization technology to educational programs. Although the technology behind the 'Rain Table' holds tremendous potential as a way for students to display and manipulate immense data sets, as with any new technology, its educational potential cannot be fully realized until methods exist to integrate it into existing educational programs. These methods are being produced, tested and disseminated by this proposal.
