High
School Students as Ecologists: Learning the Nature of
Science through the Science of Nature
Paper presented
by T. DePriest at the 88th Annual Meetings of the Ecological
Society of America. Savannah, GA, 2003.
Scientists have
the capacity to play a key role in the education of secondary
school students through engaging them in research activities.
However, to be effective at meeting new standards in science
education the learning experience must include more than
following a research protocol. As a participant in a NSF
program that places graduate students in school settings
to teach science, I attempted to integrate my own experiences
in forest ecology research into an educational setting for
the purpose of meeting current reform standards, which emphasize
learning the nature of science (NOS) and skills in scientific
inquiry. In one project we carried out investigations into
local “Old-growth” forests through a structured
inquiry in which I defined the class research goal of establishing
a “null model” for native forest ecosystems
based on specific biological (tree size class and species
composition) and physical (amount of course woody debris
and leaf litter depth) characteristics. The curriculum then
follows a pedagogical model that reflects a progression
from structured inquiry to guided, and eventually open-inquiry
through a process of shifting the identification of the
research question and research process from the instructor
to the student. In another project, we applied a research
protocol to investigate the genetic variability of sugar
levels in the sap of maple trees in an active sugarbush.
My goal for this project was to investigate methods of incorporating
aspects of the NOS related to the research process into
a structured inquiry model. From these experiences I learned
that attempting to meet science education standards through
facilitating student research involved not only an integration
of skills in ecological research processes, but also a critical
reflection of my own conceptions of the NOS.
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