Mission

The mission of the Woodrow Wilson Environmental Science Institute is to

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provide knowledge of core concepts in environmental science; provide quality content and tools to learn and teach possible causes, effects, and potential solutions to climate change; provide intellectual tools for learning and teaching science as inquiry; create, through collaboration among institute colleagues, a web page that constitutes a standards-aligned unit on oceans and estuaries; create a professional network of teachers to enhance the breadth and diversity of teaching techniques in secondary schools.

Teachers will

• work in teams;
• participate in an Internet ramp up to the summer institute by communicating with their peers and institute directors on a Woodrow Wilson email list to shape their summer learning experience;
• use the inquiry approach in their own research project, guided by experts, experiencing first hand all phases of the scientific process, including:
• researching a topic for background knowledge,
• posing a scientific question,
• building a reasonable hypothesis to answer the question,
• designing an experiment that tests the hypothesis,
• carrying out the experiment and sharing the results with their peers;
• use the Internet to find data sources and curriculum enrichment materials and communicate with colleagues;
• engage in sessions with mentors and guest speakers;
• meet regularly in peer groups to share learning and teaching skills and processes;
• use computer and laboratory technologies for data analysis and reporting their findings;
• take field trips to various sites of data collection;
• keep a journal both to record the scientific findings and their thoughts, insights, questions and the relation of this learning experience to their students.

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