There is a critical need to improve the quality of science instruction in elementary school classrooms. We address this need by having College of Engineering faculty offer a course for elementary education majors that focuses on current engineering topics and, more importantly, to present material in such a way that future teachers will be able to use the material in their classrooms. This is accomplished by first introducing the scientific principles of an engineering topic, then providing instruction in an appropriate teaching method, and finally completing the topic with a laboratory session that involves projects that can be used in an elementary classroom. The course is being developed by engineering and education faculty in collaboration with elementary school teachers. We will offer each topic as a module to facilitate portability to the elementary classroom and to allow offering the course for either one, two, or three credit hours. We are targeting pre-service elementary majors although the course is suitable for in-service teachers and could be easily tailored to accommodate middle-school participants. We are collaborating with College of Education faculty to overlap this course with their existing science teaching methods course. We expect that participants will be more confident with science topics and, using our material, will be able to teach science more effectively. Dissemination of the developed materials will occur via presentation at professional meetings within the state and nationally. In addition, we are creating a textbook to accompany the course. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the course by interviewing participants and College of Education faculty.
