EMAT Project Seeking Teacher Collaborators for Research Project Funded NSF

Teacher-collaborators will field test a 3-credit online graduate level course designed to enhance teachers' knowledge and practice related to energy concepts. The course is entitled Energy: A Multidisciplinary Approach for Teachers (EMAT). Teacher-collaborators and their students will take part in a research study designed to measure the effects of the course on teacher practice and student learning. The online professional development course will address three major energy concepts in six units. The first unit will investigate the generation of electrical energy from coal, while the remaining units will investigate the generation of electrical energy using alternative energy sources (nuclear, solar, biofuels, wind, and geothermal energy). The three cross-cutting concepts addressed in the course are:

• Conservation of Energy
• Using a Systems Approach to Understand Energy and Energy Transformations and
• Efficiency of Energy Transformations

In addition, the units will include instruction on teaching energy concepts to students with an emphasis on revealing, supporting, and challenging student thinking and creating and maintaining coherent science content storylines. The course will make extensive use of analyzing teaching through video cases.

BSCS is developing the EMAT course in collaboration with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), the National Teachers Enhancement Network (NTEN) of Montana State University, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC). We are developing the course with the best approaches to teacher learning in mind. These approaches emphasize constructing understanding from evidence and situating learning in the highly relevant classroom context. As such, teachers will be able to enhance their conceptual understanding while simultaneously enhancing their ability to teach energy concepts to their students.

Participation in this project will require a commitment from participating teachers spanning two academic years with the following timeline and tasks:

Teachers participating in the field test will need to film themselves teaching one of the following concepts and/or associated topics (topics in parentheses):

• Plants store light energy from the Sun as chemical potential energy. The combustion of fossil fuels releases that chemical potential energy. (combustion of hydrocarbons, production of fossil fuels)
• Nuclear reactions release large amounts of energy from the nucleus of the atom. (fission, transformations between matter and energy in nuclear reactions, nuclear power plants, the decay of uranium)
• When light energy shines on appropriate materials, the materials can generate/produce an electrical current. (absorption, emission, & reflection of light; photoelectric effect)
• Plants convert light energy from the Sun to chemical potential energy. Production of biofuels transforms carbon from the air into usable fuel and waste products. (photosynthesis; fermentation; producing energy for transportation)
• Energy from the Sun powers the process by which matter (water) and energy are transferred between the tropics and the poles. (global water cycle, global wind patterns, ocean currents, wind and water currents, wind and/or hydroelectric energy sources)
• Energy from Earth's interior leads to the flow of heat and matter in geothermal system. (harnessing Earth's internal energy, using geothermal energy for home use, geothermal energy transformed to electrical energy)
• Conservation of matter
• Efficiency of energy transformations
• Generating electric current
• Electrical induction 

BSCS will select 35 teacher-collaborators from across the country to participate in the course and the associated research. Teachers who work with students from racial or ethnic groups typically underrepresented in the sciences will be given first priority. BSCS will provide teachers a $400 stipend: $200 after receipt of the tests and video from year 1, and $200 after receipt of the tests and video from year 2. Teachers will also be able to earn 3 graduate credits through Montana State University’s National Teacher Enhancement Network. Teachers will be required to pay a $200 deposit in order to participate in the course, but this deposit is fully refundable provided that teachers complete all course requirements.

Submit your application by 1 April 2012 to be considered for participation. We will notify teachers of their selection by the end of May.

We will host informational webinars about this opportunity. Click here if you would like to be notified when these informational webinars will be held.

For questions, please contact:

Sue Kowalski
Science Educator, Project Director
719.219.4148
skowalski@bscs.org