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Explore our Real World, Real Science Modules on Climate Change
In honor of Earth Day this month, we are excited to highlight our work on the Real World, Real Science project. The project lead, GMRI, was funded by NASA to reinvent their LabVenture program – a unique, hands-on learning experience that is attended by nearly 10,000 of Maine’s 5th and 6th grade students every year. In this new experience, students use authentic scientific data to explore the ways in which the Earth’s changing climate is affecting the Gulf of Maine ecosystem.
The focus of ODI’s work on the project was to develop curriculum to extend that on-site experience into the classroom, as well as study the learning outcomes of participating students.
We developed a series of interactive curriculum modules to be used in classrooms following the LabVenture visit. The first module, “LabVenture Recap” reviews the content from the LabVenture visit, focusing students’ attention on the data explorations they did while at GMRI.
“The Shape of Change” introduces new datasets and visualization and analysis tools to explore how Maine’s climate is changing, and how those changes compare to other states.
The remaining modules focus on various different habitats around Maine, giving the students opportunities to use authentic scientific data to study how climate change is affecting (or may in the future affect) various regions and organisms around the state. These include:
- Marine Ecosystem:
- Forest Ecosystem:
- Field Ecosystem:
- Freshwater Ecosystem:
All of these habitat-focused modules are designed to be self-supporting, although our research suggests that students will get more out of them with some instructor facilitation. We have also found that it can be helpful to have students work in pairs or small groups so they can discuss the questions posed within the modules, and help one another to avoid getting stuck along the way.
The modules are (or will very soon be) available and free to use on the ODI website. Please help yourself, and let us know what you think!
Randy Kochevar
ODI Director
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