Abstract:
In 2005, teachers experienced a pilot geoscience professional development program at sea in the highly successful School of Rock expedition led by a team of research scientists and education specialists. Now in 2007 this Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI) sponsored program has evolved to include on-shore professional development at several institutions, including the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) marine core repository in College Station, Texas. While the venues are now more diverse, the success of the School or Rock program stems from a fundamental synergy that naturally evolves when research scientists and educators pull their combined skills and resources to make scientific data accessible to classrooms from the middle school to graduate school levels. Topics that are mutually important to researchers and educators, such as global climate change, plate tectonics, evolution, and geologic time, and the international and interdisciplinary nature of scientific investigation are developed into educational units by the team leaders and the participants. Evaluation feedback from participants in programs offered in the last 2 years indicate that the School of Rock has been among the most relevant, stimulating, and beneficial professional development program they have taken. In the School of Rock, participants are not just passive recipients of new information or exercises, but are challenged through authentic inquiry into the sediment archives that are recovered through scientific ocean drilling. Participants model real scientific practice as they delve into a wealth of data sets and scientific results to actively participate in building a bridge from cutting edge geoscience research to the classrooms. In this session the many products that have been developed for use with students by School of Rock research scientists and educators will be presented, as well as evaluation data from the program, and the plans for its future directions.