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Carol C Johnston
(Mount St. Mary's College, Los Angeles)
Manisha Javeri
(California State University, Los Angeles)
Creating an online community
supporting Environmental Issues
in Diverse Curricula
+
Grant Project PI’s
■
Dr. Carol C Johnston (Mount St.
Mary's College, Los Angeles)
■ Dr.
Irene Osisioma (California State
University, Long Beach
■ Dr.
Manisha Javeri (California State
University, Los Angeles)
+
Grant received from South
California Gas Company (2013)
This grant proposal was to build a
learning community that would include
educators formal (K- 15) and non-formal
(museums, parks, zoos, community
gardens, sustainable housing etc.), and
non-profit organizations, in California
who are all working in the area of a
service learning and environmental &
energy education.
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Goals of Building a Learning
Community
The primary goals of building this learning community are to
1.
generate awareness and civic responsibility toward
environmental education and sustainable energy solutions
and how they impact urban environment in particular.
2.
provide training (tools, assessment, resources and
strategies) and opportunities to create collaborative
partnerships among formal and non- formal environmental
and energy educators in California.
+
Ways to build the learning
community
1.
Face to face workshops for all the
members of the learning community.
2.
Develop an online social networking
platform for workshop participants to
continue the community building
process and networking
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Building a Learning Community via
face to face workshops
1.
A total of 4 face to face workshops
■
■
Two with participants from science, engineering and math
Two with mixed participants from arts, humanities, science,
engineering and math, non-profits from Los Angeles
2.
Participants: faculty from higher ed, K-12 teachers and nonprofits
3.
Content for the workshops: General environmental ed topics,
energy, ecosystems, use of technology tools and resources
4.
Activities: Case studies, sharing of best practices,
discussions, presentations, networking
Groundwork of the planning and development Process
+ Weekly face to face meetings of PI’s with 3 three graduate student interns (a web designer, and two research
1.
2.
3.
assistants from Educational Technology)
Using Google Cloud as a database for all the project files, discussions, resources, videos, workshops materials
etc
Online communications via Skype and Elluminate Live
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Building a Learning Community via
social web portal
A companion social networking portal to complement the face to face
training workshops was developed by a CSULA graduate student intern
1.
Have all the stakeholders (higher ed, K-12, non-profits) sign up and
be able to personalize their page, post blogs, start groups, create
discussion boards, post best practice examples.
2.
Construct interactivity within the site for collaboration, sharing files
and documents, and community building social tools (like Wiki,
Facebook, Twitter, android and i-phone applications etc)
3.
Host grant materials and resources for EEE training workshops as
well as links to organizations etc.
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Prototypes of two social web portals
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Successes
1.
The workshops allowed not only the participants but also the
EE team to build social and professional connections with
other like-minded environmental educators.
2.
Connections were made with faculty working on the same
campus that one would have never met of known about.
3.
This started a process of forming small interests groups of
faculty at various campuses coming together and writing
other grants, collaborating on classes and serving as
resource in each other’s curriculum development process.
4.
Collaboration between Academia and non-profits (from
theory into action)
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Challenges
■
Participants last minute canceling the workshops
■
Hosting of web portal (lack of support from the CSULA ITS)
■
■
3 Months spend in meeting CSULA web requirements
■
Section 508 (ADA) compliancy
■
Server capabilities did not allow for hosting big video files to any
kind of interactivity among member of the online community
■
Server did not have back end database
After 3 months switched to an open source site
■
Lost the momentum with the member participants
■
Site was spammed
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Current Grant Work
in 2014
■
Four more workshops (May, July and Aug)
■
Include STEM students from California
Academies
■
Collect data on the workshops
■
A training on signing up and use of the online
learning community
■
Developing mobile apps and face book page
etc
■
Explore Other grant Opportunities
■
Collecting data on the web portal from the
participants (effectiveness of integration of EE
education into their content area)
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Current Website
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Video
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Using Environmental Issues in a Pre-Service Elementary Science Methods Course to Model Inquiry
Teaching and Reduce Fears of Teaching Science
Carol C Johnston, PhD
Mount Saint Mary’s College, Los Angeles
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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The Issue
■Pre-service teachers face many fears about their abilities to
teach science
■Hispanic-Serving college in large urban area
■Many enter course with negative experiences from their own K12 science education and have poor attitudes about science
■Attitudes toward science is an important influence on how
much science will be taught (Smith & Gess-Newsome, 2004)
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Using Environmental Issues
■Links between environmental education and inquiry teaching
■Forbes & Zint (2011) found that elementary teachers
believed it was important to teach students about
environmental issues—and how to act on them. However,
this did not lead to more time spent on science (or
environmental issues)
■Bamburger & Tal (2009) attributed museum visits to helping
students to make connections through cognitive engagement,
emotional engagement, and concrete experiences.
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Research Questions
■How do pre-service elementary teachers respond to
environmentally-based science activities?
■In what ways do the use of environmental activities
to model inquiry lessons lead pre-service teachers to
be able to incorporate environmental issues into
their own standards-based science lesson plans?
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Course and Study Design
■8-week course
■Mostly undergraduate liberal studies majors in their junior or
senior year
■Course examines science concepts and theories and their
application in teaching.
■Constructivist teaching
■Inquiry-based
■Qualitative, naturalistic approach
■Reflection-oriented documents
■Teacher reactions to use of environmental education
activities
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Introducing Environmental Science
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Science as Inquiry
■ Field Trip Experiences
■ Natural History Museum
■ California Science Center
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Analysis
■Data Sources
■DAST
■Timeline
■Entrance Essay (Relationship to People, Animals, Nature)
■Lesson Plans
■Mini-lessons
■Final Reflective Essay
■All documents coded with emerging themes…
■Connecting science to everyday life
■Attitudes toward teaching and learning science
■Conceptual understanding of science
■Intentions for future teaching
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Draw a Scientist Test (DAST)
■ Chambers, 1983
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Findings: DAST
Name
DAST
Aracely
Einstein
Cindy
Einstein
Francesca
Einstein
Maria
Female (alone in lab)
Octavia
Einstein
Pia
Male
Regina
Einstein
Selena
Bill Nye
Valerie
Male
Attitudes Timeline
Outdoor
Experiences
Fun Teacher and group
Activities
Science Camp
and Book
Liked Physics, not
Biology
Experiments
2
6
10
Bad
Grade in
Course
14
Failed Course in Environmental
Science
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Findings: Timeline
Name
Timeline: Elementary—Secondary—College
Aracely
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- (Except dissection)
0
Cindy
+
+
+ (except low bio grade )
Francesca
+
+
0
Maria
0
0
Up/down
Octavia
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- (failed environ. sci.)
Pia
0
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-(low test scores)
Regina
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Liked dissection
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Selena
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Liked dissection
-
Valerie
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+
- (low test scores)
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Findings: Essay
Name
People
Animals
Nature
Aracely
strong
fear *
Recycling clubs
Cindy
strong
fear
Beauty and responsibility
Francesca
strong
strong
Responsibility to natural world
Maria
N/A
N/A
N/A
Octavia
strong
fear
Enjoys trees and plants
Pia
strong
strong
Care for Earth, using less energy
Regina
N/A
N/A*
N/A
Selena
strong
neutral*
Care for Earth, beach clean-up
Valerie
strong
strong
Concern to not damage
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Lesson Plans: Connections to Everyday Life
■Strong
■Aracely—Recycling
■Pia—Water Cycle
■Moderate
■Cindy—Ecosystems
■Francesca—Rocks and minerals
■Maria—Atoms and molecules
■Selena—Food chain
■Valerie—Bones of the Body
■Minimal
■Octavia—Chemical and physical properties and Weathering
■Regina—Mixtures and solutions
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Lesson Plans: Connections to Environmental
Issues
■Aracely—Recycling
■Octavia and Selena had some mention of outdoor environments, but
no explicit connections
Aracely’s lesson plan for recycling included a field trip to the Ecosystems
displays at the California Science Center as an extension activity.
“The field trip would allow the students to
connect their learning to science.”
C Johnston Mount Saint Mary’s
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Lesson Plans: Science Conceptual
Understanding
■Weak(Minimal)
■Aracely- Missed opportunities for connections to
ecosystems—field trip extension not fully
incorporated. (too much assumed)
■Regina—minimal connections to CA state
standards (focused on activity over learning
outcomes)
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Summary
■Aracely the only one to choose a science topic directly related to environmental
science
■ Strong connections to environment and everyday life, but unable to explicitly
include science content or processes.
■ Missed opportunities to relate to Investigation and Experimentation
Standards
■Francesca had a very strong lesson with regards to scientific concepts and
processes. However, despite the connections to ecosystems, no explicit
connections were made to environmental issues.
■Selena also had a missed opportunity with a lesson that did include some
appreciation of the outdoors, but no explicit connections to environmental
issues.
■Octavia struggled with content and tried to include too much with chemical vs.
physical properties and weathering.
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Conclusions
■How do pre-service elementary teachers respond to environmentallybased science activities?
■Response to museum visits and pre-/post- activities was positive.
Many reported that they intended to use them in their future
teaching.
■Essays indicated a slight shift toward more positive attitudes about
teaching science
■Remaining fears of own capabilities
■In what ways do the use of environmental activities to model inquiry
lessons lead pre-service teachers to be able to incorporate
environmental issues into their own standards-based lesson plans?
■Students best able to use lessons when explicitly given the
connections between the activities and the science concepts.
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Recommendations and Implications
■Pre-service elementary teacher candidates need more explicit
instruction for connecting environmental issues, museum activities,
and standards-based science concepts.
■While they agree that science concepts should be connected to daily
life and that environmental issues may help, they lack the confidence
(and possibly the content knowledge) to proceed.
■Candidates requested example lesson plans that included these
connections.
■Use of Environmental Issues could be included in pre-requisite science
courses