DRILLING INTO GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION: SCIENTIFIC OCEAN DRILLING LESSONS BRING AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCES TO CLASSROOM LEARNING

Often referred to as “one of the most successful science programs no one has ever heard of,” the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) has contributed to some of our most fundamental discoveries about Earth processes: seafloor spreading, climate change, natural hazards, and the possible origins of life. Since the 1960s, scientists have traveled Earth’s oceans, employed ground-breaking dynamic positioning and drilling technologies, and collected hundreds of kilometers of samples from the ocean floor. These cores, cylinders of sediment and rock spanning millions of years into Earth’s past, are rich with data that fuel the research of hundreds of international scientists each year.

Since 2005, the School of Rock program has increased the accessibility of ocean drilling research to wider audiences by inviting educators to participate, either aboard the JOIDES Resolution or at an affiliated institution, such as the Gulf Coast Repository. An enduring goal of this program is to develop open-access lesson plans, available on www.joidesresolution.org, that invite learners of all ages to engage in explorations of Earth science concepts and relevant career paths. This library of educational materials contains 100+ resources, created by dozens of School of Rock participants and outreach officers who have sailed on IODP expeditions. Despite the success of these materials in bringing ocean drilling science to classrooms across the country, one challenge stemming from this model is a lack of consistency in terms of content, rigor, and style. To address this, IODP partnered with the American Geosciences Institute to host Schools of Rock in which teachers and scientists collaborate to revise existing lesson plans. Updated lessons comply with national learning standards, include the analysis of quantitative and visual data collected during ocean drilling expeditions, utilize hands-on activities to make connections between coring data and Earth science concepts, and conform to new templates with both teacher-facing and student-facing materials.

In this session, we will introduce participants to existing curriculum resources that synthesize scientific ocean drilling data with K-12 learning standards, outline ways in which the lesson revisions promote authentic in-classroom research experiences, and solicit feedback from educators to further improve updated lessons.