The E-MRGE GK-12 Fellowship Program pairs graduate student fellows in Earth & Planetary Sciences (E&PS) and Biology from the University of New Mexico with middle school science teachers in Belen, Socorro, and Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico. Traditional GK-12 programs pair one fellow with one teacher. However, in Belen, collaboration between fellows from E&PS and Biology with each other and with a pair of teachers was used. Advantages of this approach include: 1) addressing a wider range of scientific subjects; 2) developing more robust content; and 3) reaching a wider range of students. Here we present some curricula our group developed and qualitative and quantitative assessment of learning effectiveness. First, the E-MRGE module introduced students to the geology and ecology of central New Mexico, emphasizing relationships between geology and ecology. Second, we developed a board game where students become a carbon atom and circulate through the geosphere, biosphere and atmosphere via natural and anthropogenic processes. Finally, the caves module introduced students to the physical and biological features of caves.
Results/Conclusions
Overall, qualitative and quantitative assessments of learning effectiveness indicated that students showed greater interest and learned more from curricula developed by the fellows-teachers group than through traditional methods of lecture and rote memorization. For example, 68% of the student reported that they liked the carbon cycle game, 63% understood the carbon cycle better after playing the game, and 100% reported that they would prefer a game over reading. After participating in the cave module, students showed a 64% increase in interest of caves. Content selected to test for student understanding was taken directly from the 2006-2008 New Mexico State Standards and Benchmarks for science education. Comments from students on fellow-teacher lessons were overwhelmingly positive. We also observed that having a male and female fellow proved additionally effective, as students tended to respond more to instruction from a person of the same gender. Finally, we believe these modules could be used and adapted to teach science at the secondary level in a public school classroom, and that the collaborative approach to instruction should be tried in other GK-12 programs.
