Workshops

Professional Development in Science and Science Education

CIRES colleagues, scientists, students, parents & community members interested in science education

To meet requirements by funding agencies to demonstrate the "broader impact" to their scientific research, many researchers are working with educators to bring their science to K-12 and college classrooms. In this workshop, we will examine scientific inquiry - how scientists "do" science - and consider how scientists can bring their expertise in inquiry to their education activities. This half-day workshop has been developed especially for scientists and science educators interested in contributing to science education. Workshop activities will provide participants with an overview of the research base behind inquiry teaching and learning, an introduction to national standards for inquiry-based K-12 science education, and some bands-on examples of how inquiry can look in the class-room.

Pre-registration is required. For further details please contact Sandra Laursen (sandra.laursen@colorado.edu) or visit our web page, ReSciPE.

Pre-service Teachers

Starting in fall 2000, we have taught an undergraduate science course for education students planning to be certified as elementary teachers, "Physical Science of the Earth System" (GEOL 2110). This course teaches core concepts in Earth science that teachers should know, models hands-on and inquiry-based teaching and learning strategies, and emphasizes scientific thinking and communication. Original development of this course was initially supported by a grant from the NASA NOVA program.

Abstract from presentation at Fall 2002 AGU meeting

In-service Teachers

As one of several higher education and K-12 partners in the Northeast Front Range Math and Science Partnership, we are developing and will teach a summer Earth science institute to improve the Earth science understanding of middle school teachers who are not "highly qualified" according to the No Child Left Behind legislation. We will offer this two-week institute in summer 2004 and summer 2006 (anticipated) to teachers from Adams 12, Fort Lupton, Jeffco, Platte Canyon, and St. Vrain Valley school districts. This project is one of four math-science partnerships supported by a grant from the Colorado Department of Education. Dr. Sandra Laursen has worked with other atmospheric scientists and teachers at Earthworks, our field-based inquiry workshop in the Rocky Mountains, to gather simple tools and techniques for outdoor measurements for meteorology and atmospheric chemistry.

Geophysical Information for Teachers (GIFT) Workshop:
Dr. Susan Buhr, Director of the CIRES Education Program led a workshop for teachers of pre-college students. This workshop offered teachers a chance to meet scientists doing the research that is defining our physical world and its environment in space. The theme for the 2003 workshop was "The Polar Regions—Bellwethers of Change." Recent research on polar environments, which are especially sensitive to the effects of global climate change, and supporting curricular materials and hands-on classroom activities related to this topic, were presented. Participants had an opportunity to attend technical sessions and exhibits of the AGU meeting. The 2003 GIFT Workshop was co-sponsored by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and the American Geophysical Union.

See also "Geology at our Doorstep" and "Weather Outside our Window". See also Earthworks.

Scientists

With colleagues from Science Discovery and Lesley Smith of the CIRES Education Program, Dr. Sandra Laursen has developed and led a half-day workshop on "Scientific Inquiry in the K-12 Classroom" for scientists working with K-12 science teachers and students. This workshop has been offered to scientists from CIRES and the University of Colorado's GK-12 program and to scientists at the fall 2003 meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Workshop at AGU Fall 2003 meeting
Article from Witness the Arctic newsletter (but issue is not available yet)

College Faculty

With colleagues from the Multi-Initiative Dissemination (MID) project, Dr. Sandra Laursen has led workshops on active learning in college chemistry to college faculty since 2000. Regional workshops are held at campuses around the country; national workshops have been offered through Project Kaleidoscope and the NSF Chautauqua program.

MID home page