Mission

1998 Woodrow Wilson Environmental Science Institute - Rutgers

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 Rutgers University. The focus of the Rutgers institute is "Oceans and Estuaries". 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, 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.

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.
• Timeline for implementation of the objectives.

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