NSF Award
0217942
Incorporating real-world experience in diverse science curricula through community building partnerships.<br/><br/>The current proposal is a request for start-up funds to complement and extend my PFSMETE (1999) post-doctoral fellowship at Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT): "Teaching science through real-world experience: an introductory course in applied conservation biology." That project tested a model of introductory level science teaching in which students are motivated to learn how to do science by giving them the opportunity to work on real-world projects in their laboratories instead of cookbook labs with pre- determined results. Partnerships with natural resource agencies supplied research opportunities for students in the course, and these partnerships contributed to both student learning (by enhancing motivation and reward), and to the partner agencies (by providing useful data, ideas and public exposure). The logical next step for this model of teaching is to expand it. In my new capacity as Assistant Professor of Biology and Co-Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Kalamazoo College, I hope to do just that. I will build upon the curriculum I developed under the previous project in order to incorporate real-world experiences in large enrollment introductory and non-majors courses, as well as upper level courses with students who are more skilled but would still benefit from the real-world motivating factors. Since enrollment in many undergraduate courses ranges from fifty to several hundred, it will be useful to learn which aspects of the partnership pedagogical model will be transferable to larger courses. I have included letters of support from two potential agency partners, Convening for Action (CF A), a local project with ties to Kalamazoo College that seeks to coordinate county-wide land use planning through a geographic information system (GIS) and intenet- based database, and the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, which oversees many of our region's important natural areas. Most of the data my students will be collecting will have a spatial component. That is, the data must be analyzed in the context of their location, or in the very least displayed spatially. A GIS is therefore essential to satisfy the goals of many of the partnerships I envision. By working under the CF A umbrella, and by using GIS I will ensure that the students' efforts are concentrated in those areas where data are <br/>,needed most. <br/><br/>At Kalamazoo College, I will eventually be responsible for five biology courses: a non-majors Environmental Science course with an enrollment cap of 30, an introductory biology course with a cap of 48, and iliree senior level courses, each with expected enrollment of 12 to 15. The proposed research will test the feasibility of scaling up the partnership model for use in these larger format courses. Using student assistants during two summers, I will lay the groundwork for incorporating experiential learning based on real-world partnerships into these courses, and other funds will support the GIS technology and added expenses of enabling students to conduct research in the classroom. The short-term success for this project will be measured by students' performance and attitude, and the utility of the partnerships for the agencies. To ascertain if real-world experience facilitates student learning, I will administer a questionnaire before and after each course to gauge students' attitudes toward science, and their comprehension of the underlying basics of how we do science. The longer term success of this project will be measured by whether or not partnerships mature into mutually beneficial collaborations that have continuity across the academic calendar. Meeting these short-term and long-term goals will provide the track record to seek additional funding from regional resources to ensure continuity of the partnerships after the proposed project is completed in August 2003.
