This project will develop a set of instructional materials that engages students, teachers and their parents in the science of coupled natural human (CNH) systems. Teacher guides, a website and family/community materials accompany the four student modules (which focus on an urban watershed, an urban/agricultural system, Amazonia and a polar system). The curriculum provides material for a yearlong capstone course; individual modules can be used as replacement units. In an era of global human impact on the environment, understanding the "complex fabric of relationships" between humans and the environment is of unique urgency for all citizens. It is no longer possible to study "natural" systems without considering human interactions. There is a need for high school materials that reflect this critically important fact, and that also support students to engage in authentic investigations of systems phenomena. To address this need, Biocomplexity draws on current research by the Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) sites and other CNH Biocomplexity grantees as the basis for the materials. Biocomplexity is inquiry-based. Student materials scaffold activities to support all students -- particularly those from historically underserved backgrounds -- to learn successfully. Curriculum design is informed by research on progression in student learning of scientific content and reasoning. Developed using the "backward design" approach, Biocomplexity ensures that instructional strategies promote learning the key ideas. Biocomplexity is an "educative curriculum:" teacher materials provide extensive and practical support that increasing teachers' content knowledge and pedagogical skills.
This proposal promises to effectively link the high school classroom with important current science and at the same time extend and strengthen the learning of core scientific and mathematical concepts, in the context of an innovative curriculum incorporating authentic scientific inquiry and using a case-based approach. Furthermore, the project will make a significant contribution to educational research on students' understanding of models and their use in science inquiry. This curriculum makes a unique contribution to the field because of its grounding in current research on Biocomplexity. Its focus on CNH systems, situated in urban, rural and other settings, results in problem-based cases in applied science that will compel the interest of students from all backgrounds. Students experience authentic scientific inquiry, exploring the same fundamental ideas that engage scientists and researchers. Informed by the best recent research -- both scientific and educational -- the curriculum will reflect the growing importance of science unifying insights from many fields of biological inquiry. Community elements serve to develop strong ties between school, parents and communities. The partnership with researchers at LTERs and elsewhere will have positive synergistic outcomes for the LTERs' education programs, while connecting a new range of nationally important research centers with high school classrooms across the country.
Goals. The goals of the Biocomplexity and the Habitable Planet project were to create and test an interdisciplinary capstone course for high school that would: • Increase student understanding of fundamental concepts in ecology and environmental science • Provide students with knowledge and skills useful for everyday decisions • Make Biocomplexity accessible to all students through multimedia resources • Provide support for teachers related to conceptual challenges presented by complex science content, and teaching challenges presented by innovative classroom activities. Activities. We designed four 6-8 week curriculum units focused on Urban, Agricultural, Tropical, and Polar systems that consist of inquiry-based investigations in which students address challenges related to land and/or resource use increasingly confronted by society. Students gather evidence and assemble arguments to support possible solutions to the challenges. They study complexity, population change over time, connections between local, regional and global ecosystems, and work with real scientific datasets. Practical, easy-to-use teacher materials supply guidance, direction, and support to implement the curriculum. They describe the software, data analysis methods and scientific research featured in each unit, provide samples of student work, sample assessments, and a directory of supplemental research and resources. The Biocomplexity website (http://external-wiki.terc.edu/display/biocomplexity/home) hosts animations, datasets, visualizations, videos, podcasts, links to all the curriculum materials, and additional resources. The curriculum includes extensive curricular supports for teachers and students that address the innovative nature of the curriculum, for example, related to content areas - biocomplexity in CNH systems, the novel structure – case studies, and the range of possible solution outcomes to each case – the lack of a definitive "right answer." Supports include podcasts, videos, and instructional powerpoints, a glossary, and unit review sections. This curriculum was an experiment. It draws on many scientific disciplines to make a broad, complex and exciting field of science, never before available in high school classrooms, accessible to high school students. It requires novel roles for both teachers and students. As a result, during development we were confronted with continual challenges in making design choices. How much mathematics do students need to understand in order to model population dynamics? What degree of scaffolding do students need to understand feedback loops in systems? What are the challenges associated with interpreting landscapes? How does the teacher support student argumentation in the situation where there is no definitive answer? It also raised the question: to what extent the social dimension of biocomplexity is a motivator for learning science. In contrast to a standard environmental science or problem-based learning course, in which the social dimension provides the context for learning, in Biocomplexity, social data were critical to answering the scientific questions. To what extent do students need to understand social science methods in order to understand the social dimension of each case they were constructing? The curriculum was thoroughly tested by nearly fifty teachers in 25 states across the country, in a wide range of settings - public, parochial and private schools; rural, suburban and urban districts; AP, elective, AP Environmental Sciences and grade 11-12 environmental science classrooms. Classroom data on ease of use, level of materials, and student engagement helped us make revision decisions to improve the curriculum units. Project outcomes. All classrooms showed statistically significant gains in student learning. Implementation of the curriculum leads to increased student knowledge related to human impacts, including climate change, to social and scientific factors that are relevant land or resource use decisions, and to the design of conservation measures. We argue that the Biocomplexity experience positions students as scientifically literate students better able to deal with complex challenges currently facing society. Teachers were overwhelmingly positive with respect to their implementation of the unit, using adjectives such as "challenging," "innovative," "valuable," "usable," etc. One teacher commented, "I really love the mix of media, tasks, readings, and thinking involved. It is really engaging!" The majority of teachers commented that students were engaged with the content and were particularly engaged with the hands-on activities and the software. The Biocomplexity project has profoundly shaped our thinking, informed other research and development work, and opened productive new directions for the future work of TERC’s Life Science Initiative. It has led to new research partnerships, and served as a foundation for exciting future directions for our climate change education work. Information about the project was disseminated through conference presentations, a network of teacher who piloted or field tested the curriculum, and teacher workshops. Besides the project website, information is also on the TERC website (www.terc.edu/work/1540.html). And was disseminated to a national teacher audience each year of the project via a poster and pamphlets available at the TERC Exhibitor Booth at the National Science Teachers Association annual conference. The Biocomplexity materials will be published in late 2013.
