SYNTHESIZING EARTH SYSTEM ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES: WHAT EVERY CITIZEN NEEDS TO KNOW

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. 0733303.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

What are the most important ideas to understand about the Earth system?

Stop and think about it.

Knowing that it's unlikely that most Americans will develop encyclopedic knowledge of the Earth system, what are the few crucial ideas everyone ought to understand?

Did you really stop and think about it?

A series of initiatives have been undertaken to define what constitutes literacy in Earth system science disciplines and in environmental education.

The process has yielded a multitude of “essential” principles.

This presentation was the last in a session that provided overviews of each of these initiatives, so knowledge of the efforts is assumed for the remainder of the presentation.

But the basic argument of the presentation doesn't require knowledge of these initiatives.

7 Essential Principles

44 Fundamental Concepts

7 Essential Principles

33 Fundamental Concepts

9 Big Ideas

75 Supporting Concepts

8 Essential Principles

46 Fundamental Concepts

The Guidelines for Excellence are of a different form than the literacy initiatives, making the numeric comparison inappropriate.

These initiatives represent a consensus view of the most important Earth system science concepts.

But...

There are no examples of creating a thick description of what everyone should understand about any topic that has led to wide swaths of the population understanding the target content, in spite of countless attempts to do just that throughout human history.

Not one.

We need to attend to the realities of school

• These principles target commencement level expectations.

• The majority of high school Earth science teachers in this country are in just four states.

• Physics, chemistry & biology dominate high school science (and have for 100 years).

• If Earth systems science is taught, astronomy is usually included in the same one year course.

...to teach in 180 days of instruction.

"Big Ideas" simply aren't big enough.

The second of three key findings of the National Research Council’s Committee on How People Learn is:

To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must:

• have a deep foundation of factual knowledge,

• understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and

• organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.

What if we taught only a few profound ideas, but taught them deeply?

Deep understanding of profound ideas requires knowledge of all (or most) of the literacy principles.

And connects them to a coherent framework, thus increasing the likelihood of true understanding and retention.

What makes an idea really big?

• The idea cuts across the Earth science curriculum.

• Understanding of the idea is attainable by students and the understanding holds promise for retention.

• The idea is essential to understanding a variety of topics.

• The idea requires uncoverage; has a bottomless quality.

Furthermore, the entire Earth science curriculum is represented by this (small) set of ideas.

How do these ideas compare to the literacy principles?

Let's take a closer look at how one big idea is manifest in the different initiatives.

Synthesizing Earth System Literacy Principles: What Every Citizen Needs to Know

About this presentation:

• This is a slightly revised version of a presentation given at the North American Association for Environmental Education annual meeting in Buffalo, NY on October 1, 2010.

• It's a "Prezi;" a presentation made using software available free at prezi.com.

• Prezi's allow you to zoom in or out from any element -- making it easier to read text elements.

• Use the up arrow key to zoom; the down to zoom out to see the entire presentation; and the right and left arrow keys to return to presentation mode

Don Duggan-Haas

The Paleontological Research Institution & its Museum of the Earth

dugganhaas@museumoftheearth.org

North American Association for Environmental Education

October 1, 2010

Buffalo, NY

So, we have around 200 fundamental concepts...

Click on the box for relevant websites

Relevant Websites

Bigger Ideas from the ReaL Earth System Science project:

http://virtualfieldwork.org/Big_Ideas.htm

The National Research Council's Framework for Science Education:

http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/Standards_Framework_Homepage.html

Ocean Literacy Principles:

http://coexploration.org/oceanliteracy/documents/OceanLitChart.pdf

Climate Literacy Principles:

http://www.cleanet.org/CLN/

Atmospheric Literacy Principles:

http://eo.ucar.edu/asl/index.html

Earth Science Big Ideas:

http://www.earthscienceliteracy.org/

Excellence in Environmental Education: Guidelines for Learning (K–12):

http://www.naaee.org/programs-and-initiatives/guidelines-for-excellence/

Color coded to ReaL Earth System Science Bigger Ideas.

Don was an Earth & Space Science Design Team member for the Conceptual Framework.