Welcome
This 16-week graduate level course has been developed at the Center for Educational Technologies™, Wheeling Jesuit University. This course is structured as a collaborative, inquiry-based model and is held in an electronic environment where K-4 teachers can study Earth system science.

This course is designed around essential questions for you and your students to address. Essential questions allow students to take more responsibility for learning in every lesson because they provide clear expectations of what students should know and be able to do. Essential questions

• are posed within the context of important life questions;
• are written so students can understand them;
• have no obvious right or simple answers;
• require higher order thinking and problem-solving or decision-making skills;
• use concepts which require students to organize their knowledge to uncover important ideas now and in the future. 

Asking and answering essential questions serve as powerful educational tools because they help teachers and students focus learning on building relevant knowledge centered around a particular idea or concept.

Course Goal: To identify how students develop Earth system science concepts through hands-on activities.

Specifically, answer the following questions:

• How do you know what students are learning about content and process from hands-on activities?
• What are the characteristics of hands-on activities which effectively help students to develop knowledge about Earth as a system?
• What is the relationship between how you teach during a hands-on activity and what students learn?
• How will you use what you have learned to help your students address essential questions in Earth System Science?

Methodology: To address the questions above as an action researcher, scholar, and designer you will:

• collaborate in learning teams of four to six teachers;
• work with a facilitator and an Earth Science mentor;
• engage in weekly online discussions;
• use Earth system science activities with your students;
• offer feedback to the other participants; and
• reflect on your own learning in an online portfolio.

Outcomes: As a result of your research, interaction, reading, and reflection, you will:

• develop action research skills for assessing student growth in addressing the essential questions of Earth system science;
• develop criteria for activities that are effective in helping students address the essential questions of Earth system science;
• increase your own scholarly knowledge of Earth system science by locating and posting resources to answer essential questions;
• learn to collaborate with other course participants as designers in developing sphere lessons; and
• create a comprehensive unit plan composed of sphere lessons that help your students address essential questions about land, living things, water, and air and their relationships within the context of Earth system science.

Course Structure: The first three weeks of the course will provide an introduction to the other course participants, your team members, and Earth system science. In the fourth week of the course, you will begin the first of four, three-week cycles during which you will examine a different sphere (land, living things, water, air). During each week of the cycle, you will work on individual and team assignments.

See Participation for detailed diagrams of the flow of the activities.

[ Welcome ] [Earth's Spheres ] [ Earth System Science ] [ Participation ]
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