"From Classrooms to Geoscience Careers: Developing, Testing and Disseminating a High School Module on Modeling Water in Urban Environments" is a Track 1 project aimed at developing resources to increase interest in geoscience careers for high school students. Ohio State University is undertaking activities to develop, implement, test, evaluate, and disseminate a module to be used in high school classrooms that promotes geoscience careers by allowing students to engage with mathematical (numerical) models to investigate local problems in hydrology. Though it is being tested locally, the module includes hands-on activities that can be deployed anywhere it rains. A sequence of modeling exercises of increasing complexity are being used in the classroom environment. The exercises culminate in a project in which students make a design decision as a result of land use change, viz. adapting to development. Training in using the module is being offered as an incentivized professional development workshop to the teachers in the partnering institution, the Metro School. After training, teachers will implement the module in their classrooms during the subsequent school year. OSU is evaluating the impact of this workshop, which helps STEM teachers meet standards outlined in the National Science Education Standards, as well as stated goals for several scientific literacies and Chapter 11 on models in the Common Core State Standards Initiative for Mathematics.
