USING K-12 TEACHERS AS A MEDIUM FOR EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

The National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsors a program called Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating (TREC). TREC is a program in which K-12 teachers participate in arctic research, working closely with scientists, as a pathway to improving science education through teachers' experiences in scientific inquiry. TREC builds on the outstanding scientific and cultural opportunities to link research and education through intriguing topics that will engage students and the wider public. The TREC program comprises: arctic field research experience, classrooms and public connections, professional development, and sustained community support. We highlight the results of collaboration between a high school teacher and scientific researchers along the Colville River on Alaska's North Slope in efforts to provide the most complete documentation to-date of an ancient arctic dinosaur ecosystem during a "greenhouse" period in Earth's history. This has resulted in a more detailed understanding of Cretaceous dinosaurs and their high latitude environments in the ancient Arctic 65-70 million years ago. A number of techniques were utilized before, during, and after the field experience to share the research with students and the public. Including, for example, newspaper articles relating the research experience to the public and online journal entries translating the science to a wider audience. A collaborative effort was used to design authentic classroom activities that facilitate science inquiry in the classroom. One activity encourages students to apply the principle of uniformitarianism through the comparison of dinosaur teeth to the teeth of Quaternary fauna. Other activities involve exercises utilizing stratigraphic, paleopedologic, and paleontologic data. We also demonstrate how collaborations between researchers and teachers can benefit both groups' professional development – and how these collaborations are effective in promoting geoscience in the K-12 classroom and with the general public. Samples of activities generated from the field experience will be displayed to exemplify how research experiences can be transferred into classroom science inquiry experiences.