PRE-SERVICE ELEMENTARY TEACHER'S USE OF DLESE

Elementary teachers are generalists, they are required to learn and teach language arts, science, math, social studies, art, music, and physical education. The pre-service elementary teachers here at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) can major and minor in any of these areas. Last semester in the Earth Science for Elementary Teachers (ESSC 202) classes there were 164 students, 12% were majoring and 18% were minoring in integrated science. This is only 30% of the students who take courses beyond the required science classes of chemistry, physics, earth science, and biology. In other words, most elementary teachers have only a very rudimentary level of science content. This is partially the reason that science is difficult for many elementary teachers to teach.

EMU has been the nation's largest producer of professional educators, including teachers, counselors, administrators, and other school personnel (Focus EMU, 2003). EMU is also graduating hundreds of elementary teachers every semester. If these teachers have ideas and resources in place that they are familiar with for teaching specific National and Michigan benchmarks they are probably more likely to use them when they begin their teaching careers.

The first objective of the study was to determine if the students in ESSC 202 became better acquainted with the Michigan Curriculum Framework (MCF) benchmarks for earth science after completing the DLESE project. The second objective was to determine the ease and effectiveness with which the ESSC 202 students found appropriate activities to teach grades 3-5 earth science from the DLESE website. Greater than 75% of the students remembered the benchmarks, which implies that this project obtained its first goal of acquainting students with the MCF. The second goal was a little less positive. However, the project was worthwhile and will be included in future ESSC 202 classes.