APPLYING DISTANCE LEARNING TECHNOLOGY TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR EARTH SCIENCE TEACHERS

In Georgia, the recent adoption of the new K-12 curriculum, the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS), has led to a need for professional development for teachers. A new Earth Systems course was approved by the Georgia Department of Education in 2006, added to the high school core curriculum, and offered for the first time in Fall 2007. The Earth Systems course investigates connections among Earth's systems (atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere) through time. Topics covered include systems and cycles, weather and climate, reconstructing Earth's past, the history of life, solar system formation, Earth's interior, plate tectonics, landform evolution, and Earth citizenship.

In Summer 2007, a two-week teacher workshop was held at Georgia Perimeter College, and fifteen teachers from across the state were trained in Earth Systems topics, directly related to the GPS. The workshop combined geologic field trips, laboratory demonstrations, presentations, hands-on inquiry-based activities, and online course materials to increase teacher interest and understanding. As part of the workshop and follow-up sessions, teachers developed tasks and culminating activities which they posted online in WebCT, to receive feedback, and to share the materials with other participants in the course. The web page for the workshop is available at http://gpc.edu/~pgore/EarthSystems/EarthSystemscontents.html and serves as a resource for course participants as they teach the Earth Systems course.

Georgia Perimeter College continues to offer its online “Earth and Space Science for Middle School Teachers” course, which was developed in 2000 and updated to follow the GPS in 2005. A new online course, “Physical Science for Middle School Teachers” was added in Summer 2007. In addition, online course materials are now available for an inquiry-based “Integrated Science – Life and Earth Science” course that was specifically developed for Early Childhood Teacher Education majors.

The use of online course materials in both teacher workshops and college courses provides a resource that teachers, in Georgia and beyond, can take back to their classrooms and share with their students. For more information, see http://www.gpc.edu/~pgore/gore.htm.