Workshop: summary
Day 2: Curriculum Development
Kathie Mackin discussed the evaluation of the lab-based teaching of weather, climate, and oceanography courses offered at the 6 institutions, as part of the Weather in a Tank project led by John Marshall. A total of some 500 students were exposed to 17 experiments over a two-year period, although some experiments were used more often than others. The efficacy of the pedagogy was quantified by identical pre- and post-tests. The tests were also administered to comparison groups, to which similar subject matters were taught without significant exposure to experimental components. The results were analyzed for various parameters, including gender, SAT/ACT scores, fields of major, etc. Despite some inevitable sampling biases, the results unequivocally showed a statistically significant improvement in students' understanding when the experiments were a major component of the courses. The project was well received by the instructors, too. The challenge remains in the facilitation of lab set up and involvement of a larger faculty body.
Juan Botella talked from the perspective of a high-school teacher. He incorporated the rotating tank experiment in the earth science curriculum, first as demonstration and graduallly into hands-on. At this level teaching cannot rely on mathematics, and the visual elements such as demos play an important role. Overall, students can absorb some basic concepts of geophysical fluids without math. Juan observed students' increasing involvement, although this required some initial guidance. In fact, one of the challenges is to achieve a balance bewteen free student inquiry based on self-direction and guided instruction (this is very much true in the college settings, too). Another challenge is to educate the educators: not all high-school science teachers are specialized in earth science and they need to be introduced to new resources and pedagogies and convinced that they work.
During the lunch break, Peter Rhines demonstrated a portable, projectable turntable on the OHP. The small acyrilic tank is rotated by a Lego motor (as per Peter, the quality of the latest model is poor), and the light shone through the tank projects the dye pattern on the wall. This low-cost system works well in a large classroom setting and the image is surprisingly rich, affording more 'pixels' than any digital screens. Peter also demonstrated wave dispersion (phase and group velocities) with the interfering moire patterns by sliding two transparencies with stripes of varying width.