DIG TEXAS INSTRUCTIONAL BLUEPRINTS FOR TEACHING EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE

DIG TEXAS is an alliance of earth scientists and educators at higher education institutions, teachers, and other stakeholders across the state with a shared vision to elevate the stature of the geosciences in Texas and attract individuals from groups underrepresented in STEM fields to pursue geosciences as a career. To this end, DIG Texas has launched a new project to provide earth science teachers with online access to well-defined, standards-aligned course roadmaps. The project, sponsored by NSF, brings together five regional teams comprising an earth science content expert, pedagogy specialist, and two science teachers to create instructional blueprints that detail specific units for a one-year earth science course. The blueprints will have online links to pre-existing, exemplary, high quality, research-based earth system science learning activities. Selected resources will constitute a manageable number carefully chosen to emphasize the unique environment and features of the different teams’ regions (place-based learning) and packaged in a way that facilitates teachers’ use. The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) and the CyberShARE Center of Excellence at University of Texas at El Paso are collaborating on the technical infrastructure that supports communication and collaboration among team members, project investigators, and other partners, and access to the online blueprint pages.

This presentation provides an overview of the project and reports on progress toward the development of blueprints that will help teachers implement Texas’ Earth and Space Science at a level that corresponds to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for the capstone course.