GLOBAL WEATHER STUDIES IN A “FLATTENED” EARTH SCIENCE CLASSROOM

As of the fall semester 2013, Martinsville City Public Schools adopted Project Based Learning (PBL) with the intent of creating “more independent learners, better problem solvers, team workers ... better-educated students and better users of education” (1). As a part of this process a pilot earth science class will take part in both intra-national and international collaboration by partnering with students in a high school class outside of Seattle, WA and a middle school class outside of Barcelona, Spain to conduct weather and cloud studies and to make weather predictions.

In recent years there have been numerous changes in educational practices including the idea of a “flattened classroom” (2) and, most recently, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The idea behind the flat classroom is that as our economy becomes increasingly globalized, and multinational teams dominate our workforce, it is vital that we educate our students to work in an environment “without walls” (3). Our students should be able to use class time to learn processing skills, to apply concepts they have learned, and to work collaboratively to problem solve, both classrooms without walls and PBL provide opportunities for students to do just that. One of the central concepts of the NGSS is to have science “be connected to societal or personal concerns that require scientific or technological knowledge” (4). By integrating technology, such as wikis, GoogleDocs, and blogs asynchronous communication becomes possible and partnerships can be established between students spread across the world. This study looks to quantify the benefit to earth science education through a global approach and to add to the growing qualitative and anecdotal evidence of its successes (5).