Undergraduate Preservice Elementary Teachers Create and Publish Humorous Cartoons Focused on Earth Features and Global Warming Graph Interpretation Teaching Materials

This poster presentation highlights involvement of undergraduate preservice elementary teachers in geoscience education research of innovative teaching materials during two different courses. In a literacy methods course, undergraduate elementary education majors read Earth science trade books and transformed the concepts about geologic features (volcanoes, caves, glaciers, earthquakes, fossils, crystals) into humorous cartoons addressing science content. Data collected during this investigation showed that the use of humor motivated them to learn science concepts. In a mathematics methods course, preservice elementary teachers created hands-on graph interpretation teaching materials to convey information about global warming. They located different graphs portraying evidence related to global warming in the scientific literature. Then they used computer technology skills to create educational materials that included graph interpretation statement cards to be classified as “true” or “false.” Data concerning favorable attitude changes of preservice teachers toward library work and concern about global warming are included. The publication of both sets of these instructional materials as ERIC documents allowed these undergraduate preservice teachers to experience aspects of science education research and publication.