We recognize systemic science education problems: The majority of science courses, grades K-16, offer only the "products" of science and sparse teaching of the "process" of doing science. Due to this emphasis on products, college introductory science courses often fail to retain students in science, mathematics, and engineering majors, and fail in pre-service training for teachers, and minority populations. Systematic change is problematic. The different academic standards in different schools, colleges, and universities prohibit real articulation among faculty at these different levels and places, and there are few real systemic approaches to curriculum that are empirically derived or driven. Our objective is to provide a multi-institutional process of empirically driven curriculum development that emphasizes real-world scenarios in environmental science. We will develop three research- rich, inquiry-based courses and laboratories that will help students develop abilities to identify environmental problems, to design and implement research to study environmental problems, to develop functional literacy in the analysis and interpretation of data, to attain functional literacy in the application and use of advanced technologies, and to draft technical reports. These courses and laboratories are based on societal environmental focal points: Nuclear Waste Storage, Coal Power Plants, and Solid Waste Landfills. Our consortium of five institutions will form an Interdisciplinary Faculty Institute to review and implement the simulations. The Institute would create an across-institution infrastructure of professional development and collaboration through curriculum seminars and practical workshops for faculty. Our use of an outside review panel of industry and government content experts grounds these courses in the real world processes, and the model we will develop and quantify will be used at other institutions, especially those with populations o f native Americans and hispanic-Americans.
