Our research is supported in part by three grants from the National Science Foundation: Developing a research-based learning progression for the role of carbon in environmental systems (REC 0529636), the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science (ESI-0227557) and Long-term Ecological Research in Row-crop Agriculture (DEB 0423627). Our goal is to integrate Environmental Literacy into contemporary K-12 curriculum. We have four working groups, each of which is working on different strands of environmental literacy: carbon cycle, water cycle, biodiversity and evolution, and connecting actions. The groups consist of university-based researchers and K-12 teachers. Our major products of past work are: (a) research papers addressing student conceptions of environmental issues; (b) assessents that can be used with elementary, middle, and high school students.

 

Currently, we are working on learning progression for each of the four strands. We define learning progressions as descriptions of the successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about a topic that can follow one another as children learn about and investigate a topic over a broad span of time.  The learning progresssion for each strand is elaborated through a set of progress variables. Our learning progressions involving their progress variables are anchored on one end by what we know about the concepts and reasoning of students entering school - Lower Anchor. On the other end, they are anchored by societal expectations (values) about what we want middle school students to understand about science - Upper Anchor.

 

We also intend to enrich and validate the developing learning progression through teaching experiments.  We welcome teachers from various grade levels and background to join our learning community. Please contact us at envlit@msu.edu and go to group web pages for further information.

*Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website are those of the project staff and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.