PROJECT MAMMOTH PARK: PEAT DEPOSITS AS A FOCUS FOR INQUIRY-BASED TEACHER TRAINING

The broad alluvial valley of the Willamette River in western Oregon is the most populated region of the state, and is believed to have been continuously occupied for at least 6000 years. Investigations of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene history of the valley have been difficult owing to the paucity of lakes older than ca. 5000 yrs, as well as an absence of modern peat deposits. Consequently, the discovery in 1987 of a buried late-Pleistocene peat deposit with remnants of a Pleistocene megafauna was of great interest. For the past four years, these peat deposits have been the focus of a multidisciplinary project that partners research scientists, science educators, and K-12 teachers in an exploration of the nature of scientific inquiry. A two-week field camp each summer has involved dozens of primary and secondary school teachers in on-site excavations. Landscape perspectives, ground-based remote sensing, and retrieval and identification of plant and animal remains from cores, trenches, and/or archeological pits are combined with activities developed by science educators that highlight different kinds of inquiry processes. Researchers (stratigraphers, soil scientists, physicists, paleoecologists, entomologists, archeologists, geomorphologists) model a diversity of approaches to the inquiry process, rather than simply teaching content. The goal of the project is to equip teachers with an inquiry-based tool kit that they can use to develop science curricula that focus on long-term processes of environmental change. The creative tension between the focus on the inquiry process (essential to meet the project goal) and the perceived need on the part of participating scientists to transmit content to K-12 teachers has had the effect of expanding traditional models of science instruction for the scientists involved in the project. Project Mammoth Park is expected to have long-term ripple effects both in inquiry-based curriculum development as well as in the general awareness of and interest in environmental archives as a library of information about past environments.