STUDENT-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE RESEARCH IN A HIGH SCHOOL SETTING

GK-12 is an NSF funded fellowship with the goal of incorporating genuine scientific research into high school classrooms for the benefit of students, teachers, and graduate mentors. Currently, we have been working with a Living Environment class at an urban Brooklyn high school where students were given the opportunity to direct the course as well as scientific inquiry. This approach, referred to as student-centered learning, allows the instructor to act as a facilitator of knowledge, as opposed to a lecturer. The class consisted mainly of ninth graders, about 15 years old, and almost completely of minority decent. The class collaboratively selected five facets of their “living environment” to study: Air, Water, Health, Crime, and Nutrition; devised a course of action, planned out scientific experiments, and executed them with the help of their teacher, and us as mentors. In addition to their experiments and studies, students were responsible for conducting background research in their study area, organizing their data, presenting their findings, and communicating their results to the school and community at large. Finally, students were introduced to geospatial data collection by using Google Earth as a means for producing sample location maps throughout their neighborhood. The students became environmental stewards in their communities, promoting more sustainable living, healthy habits, and petitioning the government to do the same. By using this approach, students remained engaged and active participants in their class, taking ownership of their education.