Copyright (c) 2013 Purdue University All rights reserved. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dlcpre Recent documents in DLC Presentations en-us Wed, 13 Feb 2013 10:20:12 PST 3600 http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dlcpre/3 http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dlcpre/3 Thu, 15 May 2008 07:14:45 PDT The availability of safe drinking water is a critical global issue and is becoming an increasing limited resource. As such, it is important to begin water resources education at an early age to increase awareness of water resource issues and to encourage responsible environmental stewardship. The purpose of this study was to assess middle school students' perceptions of the availability of safe drinking water in the U.S., particularly as it relates to local environmental issues. As a component of a larger unit on water resources, middle school students at two schools completed pre/post-evaluations to assess their knowledge of water resources in the U. S. Preliminary results from this study indicate that students do not have a consistent perception of the availability and distribution of safe drinking water in the U.S. Many students believed that the government was responsible for and able to provide adequate drinking water to its citizens; however, there was a common perception that unsafe drinking water exists in both rural and urban regions of the country, although not necessarily in local areas. Another common theme was contamination of drinking water in the U.S. is limited to disaster areas, such as hurricane-stricken regions, and that contamination is only a temporary phenomenon. Since these ideas were prevalent among the students even after completion of the water resources unit, it may be important to relate water resources and environmental awareness to students on a more personal and local level to better develop student understanding of water issues.

]]> Carrie Davis Todd et al. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dlcpre/2 http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dlcpre/2 Thu, 15 May 2008 07:06:40 PDT The Indiana Interdisciplinary GK-12 program matches PhD students with middle school teachers in a year-long collaborative program designed to enhance the communication and teaching skills of graduate fellows, and to bring new perspectives, role models and content knowledge to science classrooms. Here we report on a highly informative example of the types of transformations experienced by fellows. The fellows had been working closely with particular teachers and classrooms for nine weeks when they experienced a "visiting scientist" outreach program put on by a university. Through summer inquiry workshops and in-depth interactions with teachers and students, the fellows had developed a strong sense of appropriate ways to engage with what they had come to think of as "their" middle school students. Email sent to the visiting scientists and a focus group discussion revealed that fellows were distressed by the ways in which the visiting scientists failed to relate to the level and learning styles of the students, presented material in confusing and highly abstract ways using unfamiliar jargon, and made no attempt to work with teachers on pre- and post- visit activities to place their visit in context for the students. The visiting scientist program provided the fellows with a very immediate experience that reinforced and made real what they had been learning about pedagogy, and that demonstrated the responsibility they felt for the learning environments of "their" students. Through these sorts of experiences, graduate fellows are developing a unique and rich foundation for future success in teaching and learning.

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