"Comets, Origins, and Life:” Promoting Interdisciplinary Science in Secondary and Middle Schools in the Washington, DC and Saint Louis, MO Metro Areas

Details "Comets, Origins, and Life:” Promoting Interdisciplinary Science in Secondary and Middle Schools in the Washington, DC and Saint Louis, MO Metro Areas "Comets, Origins, and Life:” Promoting Interdisciplinary Science in Secondary and Middle Schools in the Washington, DC and Saint Louis, MO Metro Areas

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.3706b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #37.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.968

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Developing a full-year program to support secondary and middle school science education is a key part of the "broader impact” component of NSF Grant AST- 0807939 (PI/Co-PI Bonev/Gibb). This program is realized at two stages: (1) a professional development course for teachers is offered during the summer; (2) during the subsequent academic year we collaborate with educators in lessons planning or curriculum development as demanded in their particular schools. We successfully offered the course “ Comets, Origins, and Life: Interdisciplinary Science in the Secondary Classroom ” (45 contact hours; 3 credits) in the summers of 2009 and 2010 at the Catholic University of America. This class demonstrates how a complex hypothesis - for the delivery of water and prebiotic organic matter to early Earth - is being tested by integrating astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and Earth and planetary science. Collaborations with participants from the 2009 class include curriculum development within the Earth Science program in Prince Georges county, MD and strengthening science in Washington DC public schools. Our next step is to offer our class in the Saint Louis, MO area. The main challenge in our work with educators is not to present them with "interesting information", but to fit what we offer within the very particular curriculum expectations of their school districts. These curriculum expectations often vary from district to district and sometimes from year to year.
We gratefully acknowledge the support by the NSF, allowing to fully integrate our research area into education. We also gratefully acknowledge our collaborations with the Goddard Center for Astrobiology and the Howard B. Owens Science Center (both in MD) in developing our class curriculum.
Educators interested in this program can contact Boncho Bonev (bonev@cua.edu; for the Washington DC and Baltimore, MD areas) and Erika Gibb (gibbe@umsl.edu; for the Saint Louis, MO area).

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