Mission

1998 Woodrow Wilson Environmental Science Institute - Princeton

Through a national recruiting and selection process approximately 50 middle grades and high school teachers will participate in the 1998 Woodrow Wilson Environmental Science Institute on "Climate Change" at Princeton University. The focus of the Princeton institute is "Atmospheric Changes." The institute is funded by the National Science Foundation.

The mission of the Woodrow Wilson Environmental Science Institute is to

• provide knowledge of core concepts in environmental science;
• provide quality content and tools to learn and teach possible causes and effects of climate change, and opportunities for human intervention;
• 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 climate change;
• 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 an experiment,
  • sharing results with peers.
• analyze the policy issues that influence and are influenced by scientific debate;
• use the Internet and Princeton library to find data sources and curriculum enrichment materials;
• use the Internet to communicate with colleagues;
• engage in sessions with mentors and guest speakers;
• meet regularly in peer groups to share learning and teaching skills and processes;
• take field trips to various sites of data collection and analysis;

Further Information:

• Curriculum -- content and skills to be developed during the institute.
• Standards by which we will judge the success of various aspects of the Institute.
• Project through which these will be implemented.
• Timeline for implementation of the objectives.

(Updated 6/8/1998)

Woodrow Wilson Leadership Program in Environmental Science lpt@www.woodrow.org
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation webmaster@woodrow.org
CN 5281, Princeton NJ 08543-5281 Tel:(609)452-7007 Fax:(609)452-0066