“THE WORLD IN A RIVER”: REDESIGNING AN EARTH SCIENCE COURSE FOR PRE-SERVICE ELEMENTARY TEACHERS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE NGSS

“The World in a River” is a project at the University of Delaware to completely redesign the Earth Science course required of all elementary pre-service teachers within the framework of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The overarching theme will be Earth system processes as exemplified within a single stream watershed; each unit will be tied to observations the students can make in the field and online. This exploration and design project is funded by the NSF IUSE program; team members include one geoscience faculty, two STEM education faculty, and an evaluator. Research has shown that elementary teacher education students typically lack strong scientific content knowledge, have a limited understanding of the nature of science and the process of scientific investigation, and have limited confidence in their ability to learn and teach science. The goals of this project are 1) to increase pre-service teacher learning and skill development in Earth Science, 2) to bolster confidence in their ability to teach science, and 3) to increase their interest and motivation to learn science.

In this presentation, results of Year 1 of this 3-year project will be discussed and examples of how the course curriculum and activities align with the NGSS will be presented. The project is using a design-based approach, with iterative design, enactment, analysis, and redesign cycles, and a quasi-experimental approach for evaluation. In Year 1, Earth Science was offered in three formats: a traditional small class (25 students), a traditional large class (147 students), and a new NGSS aligned small class (25 students). In Year 2, the newly designed NGSS-aligned approach will be adapted to the large class format (150 students), and after enactment and analysis, redesigned for Year 3. Project evaluation data include measurements pre- and post-course of Earth Science content knowledge, motivation to learn science, and self-efficacy for science teaching, as well as structured observation of classroom activities.