Partners in Discovery of the Columbia River Watershed GK-12 project at WSU Vancouver: Building scientist-teacher collaborations to support student learning and inquiry skills

Background/Question/Methods

The “Partners in Discovery of the Columbia River Watershed” GK-12 project pairs WSU Vancouver Environmental Science graduate students (Fellows) with 6^th-9^th grade science teachers in 5 SW Washington school districts for year-long, one-on-one partnerships.  Our goals are to bring the Fellows’ research and expertise into the classroom and to support the Fellow-teacher partners as they teach science through authentic inquiry, particularly to connect kids to their place in the watershed.  

Results/Conclusions

Over the past 18 months we have focused explicitly on the nature of the collaboration between the Fellows and teachers, and how the development of that working relationship influences students’ abilities in scientific inquiry and knowledge of ecology and earth science.  Each Fellow-teacher pair jointly identifies specific needs among their students, e.g. ability to define testable hypotheses, or ability to use data as evidence of a scientific explanation.  The pairs then together develop course activities/lessons that address these identified needs, examine student work and assessment results, and jointly reflect on what additional steps may be needed to improve those skills.  We will present two examples of these collaborative projects conducted in 7^th grade life science classes:  a 3-month module to research and write a comprehensive management plan for a local animal, and a 1-week activity to develop an informational brochure for homeowners on Lacamas Lake explaining the importance of macroinvertebrates to lake and river ecology.  We are conducting qualitative, case-study investigation of these partnerships to assess directly how the scientist-teacher collaboration is impacting student learning and ability to conduct inquiry.