A partnership of research scientists, science educators and supporters of science-based conservation are developing mechanisms to engage middle school students and educators from a major urban region in geosciences research with advanced sampling and sensing platforms. The collective science and education strengths of Rutgers University, the N.J. Marine Sciences Consortium/N.J. Sea Grant College Program, Brookdale Community College, the National Park Service, and the Sandy Hook Foundation -- a nongovernmental organization, constitute the backbone of a partnership that is incorporating real-world geoscience programs into formal and informal science curricula and activities at the Red Bank Middle School. The school is revamping its science curricula to align it with the new state science standards which were just revised to include the Earth sciences. The partnership is developing educational strategies to incorporate real-world science and technology into the new curricula with an emphasis on inquiry-based learning, integrated science topics, and the inclusion of technology. Educational strategies also are being developed to enrich after school programs and enhance science content for field programs delivered at the Sandy Hook Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area, National Park Service.
A partnership of research scientists, science educators and supporters of science-based conservation developed mechanisms to engage middle school students and educators from a major urban region in geosciences research with advanced sampling and sensing platforms. The collective science and education strengths of Rutgers University, the N.J. Sea Grant Consortium, Brookdale Community College, the National Park Service, and the Sandy Hook Foundation--a nongovernmental organization, constituted the backbone of a partnership that incorporated real-world geoscience programs into formal and informal science curricula and activities at the Red Bank Middle School. Through this project, the school revamped its science curricula which were just revised to include the earth sciences. Educational strategies also were developed to enrich after school programs and enhance science content for field experiences. The partnership identified key strategies to enable a middle school in an urban area to capitalize on active research investigations underway at a nearby natural area to transform its science curricula in a collaborative manner with scientists, environmental managers and science educators. Such a collaborative approach helped to create a school culture that fosters cross-discipline and cross-grade level interaction, forms cross-curricular linkages between in-school, after school and environmental center programs, aligns activities with core science standards, and integrates current scientific content and technology into school programs. Collaboration was strengthened by engaging teachers in the acquisition and pre-processing of real-world data into sample lesson plans and activities, especially for the non-science teachers. Integration of content across disciplines and grade levels was very important for designing the teacher professional development workshop. In addition, the inclusion of administrators was important to providing structured time for the teachers to collaborate across disciplines and grade levels. The availability/presence of a scientist during lesson plan development was highly valued by the teachers. In addition, a Scientist-in-Residence program was very important for initial implementation of newly developed curriculum modules. These strategies can be used to broaden incorporation of STEM content and field experiences into middle school systems and K-12 science education networks. Further, content can be incorporated into many disciplines (e.g., language arts, history, social sciences) to enhance and enrich STEM awareness, literacy and engagement among students. Communication mechanisms that sustain the collaboration beyond the funding period are extremely important and include continuation of the Scientist-in-Residence program, periodic brown bag lunches with scientists and educators, and development of a "wiki" to foster access to data resources in a simple, effiecient manner. A resource repository was also created to provide teachers with field equipment (such as the aquabotz) to support hand-on learning activities and field experiences they can conduct on their own.
