| NSF Org: |
RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 10, 2012 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 10, 2012 |
| Award Number: | 1202745 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Brandon Jones
mbjones@nsf.gov (703)292-4713 RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | August 15, 2012 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2016 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $111,462.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $111,462.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
500 W UNIVERSITY AVE EL PASO TX US 79968-8900 (915)747-5680 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
500 W University St. El Paso TX US 79902-5816 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | GEO TEACH |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
DIG TEXAS (Diversity and Innovation for Geosciences in Texas) is an alliance comprising earth scientists, educators and other stakeholders with a shared vision to elevate the stature of the geosciences in Texas. With funding from NSF's Geoscience Education program, DIG TEXAS is using cybertechnology to promote collaboration among alliance members and support activities designed to strengthen earth science education in Texas. The project is creating five on-line course road maps, or blueprints, for use in high school earth science classes. Each blueprint consists of an original scope and sequence, packaged with links to pre-existing, exemplary learning activities and resources. Regional teams are working to tailor the blueprints so that they address the specific needs of the diverse student population and educators who work with them throughout the state. The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College serves as the repository for the blueprint web pages, which also is accessible from the DIG TEXAS website. CYBER-ShARE, a Center of Excellence at the University of Texas at El Paso, is collaborating with SERC to create structural frameworks for organizing information in the collections. Coherent blueprints for implementation of a 21st century earth science course are lacking, not only in Texas, but also throughout the nation in general. Therefore the blueprints are also expected to serve as examples of earth science instruction in other states by demonstrating the integration of stellar teaching resources into earth science courses.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The DIG Texas Instruction Blueprint project had two major goals aimed at strengthening Earth science education in Texas by ensuring that the state’s high school Earth science course, Earth and Space Science, is taught at the appropriate level by teachers who are aided by online, well defined and standards aligned course roadmaps, including recommended high quality, research based learning activities and teacher resources. The first goal is supported by the development of five online instructional blueprints that document what to teach in a yearlong (approximately 27 weeks) secondary Earth science course or during an immersive, shorter Earth science summer program. Each blueprint stitches together three week units that contain well vetted, curated educational resources and learning activities with scaffolding notes for educators to help them teach the activities in the unit. A blueprint provides a suggested pathway for teaching a rigorous Earth science course.
In addition to the five example blueprints, the 24 units created through this project exist in a “bank”. Of these, 18 are live and the remainders are currently in revision. This “bank” addresses the second goal of the project by allowing educators to create their own individual blueprints by selecting specific units from the entire collection of units (bank) and assembling them in a new blueprint customized for use in their own classes. SERC developed the technical infrastructure and approaches to address this goal. The project is a collaborative effort that draws on the resources of three major research universities, The University of Texas at Austin (UTA), The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), and Texas A&M University (TAMU), all of which are members of the DIG TEXAS (Diversity and Innovation for Geosciences in Texas) alliance. DIG TEXAS is a loosely based alliance of Earth scientists and educators at higher education institutions, science and geography 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. By strengthening Earth science education at the high school level, we expect that diversity will improve in the geosciences as a result. Sixty seven percent of Texas K12 students are minorities not represented in STEM disciplines.
Last Modified: 10/29/2016
Modified by: Laura F Serpa
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