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North
Temperate Lakes SchoolYard (SLTER) Program
Partnerships with Schools
NTL-LTER establishes long-term relationships with schools
and districts in Wisconsin. Unlike many outreach and education activities that
are dependent on relatively short-term partnerships, our guiding philosophy is
much like our commitment to ecological research – we develop long-term
relationships. NTL-LTER and the Center for Biology Education
http://www.wisc.edu/cbe/index.html at the University of Wisconsin
Madison have collaborated since 1998 on the development,
implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of outreach and education.
We partner with schools in the Arbor-Vitae Woodruff area of northern Wisconsin
near the Trout Lake Field Station. Scientists and other staff at the Trout Lake Field
Station work with area elementary teachers and middle school teachers to involve
students in winter limnology activities that introduce students to scientists,
LTER research done in their area, biological diversity, and limnological methods.
The Trout Lake Field Station also hosts Research Experiences for Teachers participants.
LTER-school partnerships in southern Wisconsin include the Madison Metropolitan
School District, the Middleton Cross Plains School District, and Milwaukee
Public Schools. Activities in southern Wisconsin, include workshops and courses
for K-12 teachers, precollege activities for elementary, middle, and high school
students, and research experiences for teachers.
We have also partnered with science education reform research projects in
Wisconsin, California, and Tennessee. These efforts are part of the
System-wide Change for All Learners and Educators project
and with faculty at Peabody
College in Vanderbilt University on Supporting the Development of
Model-based Reasoning to understand progressions of learning K-undergraduate
in ecology and evolution.
Professional Development Resources and
Instructional Materials for Students
Our partnerships with schools has led to productive collaboration
among K-12 teachers, scientists, science educators, and information managers that
have successfully developed educational materials used in professional development
workshops and courses for teachers and instructional materials for students.
We have worked with district science administrators and teachers to align materials
with existing curriculum. For example, we have integrated several pieces of NTL
research and methodology within Full Options Science Systems to create locally
relevant inquiry activities for students.
Research Experiences for Teachers
NTL scientists at the Trout Lake Biological Field Station
and at UW-Madison routinely host teachers in their research group.
Research Experiences for Teachers participants typically spend part
of their summer actively conducting research and developing instructional
materials related to their research, followed by academic year
field-testing in their schools.
Contact Dr. Robert
Bohanan if you're interested in learning more about this opportunity.
Instructional Materials for Undergraduates
Recently NTL scientists have collaborated with
Introductory Biology 151-152 at UW-Madison to develop problem-based
learning cases for use in this large lecture that serves over
1,000 biology majors annually. We have developed and tested
three cases that integrate LTER research and data.
These include ‘Skating on Thin Ice’
that uses changes in lake ice phenology,
‘Aquatic Hitchhikers and Promiscuous Boaters’
that uses zebra mussel invasion data and predictive models,
and ‘Are Fish Made of Maple Leaves’
that uses research on the relative importance of
terrestrial carbon to aquatic food webs. These have been field-tested
and used by UW faculty teaching ecology in this course.
We have also adapted these for use with preservice science education majors,
for science teachers, and for high school students.
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