Next Generation Science Standards Webinar

On April 12 at 3pm CT, NAGT and AGI will host an NGSS webinar featuring two different presentations:

Explore plate tectonics through GPS data

Most students are leveraging geodesy every day through GPS technology embedded in commonly used devices: smartphones, cars, health trackers, computers, and many other devices. This familiarity with the technology provides an opportunity to segue from a familiar navigational experience of a GPS-enhanced mapping application to the scientific applications recorded by permanently installed high-precision GPS and other geodetic techniques. In collaboration with master teachers and college faculty, UNAVCO, an NSF-funded non-profit university-governed consortium, has developed a suite of free learning materials featuring high-resolution GPS data and three-dimensionally aligned to NGSS. In this session we will explore data-rich plate tectonics lessons as a theme of discovery.

Presenter: Shelley Olds, Science Education Specialist, UNAVCO

High-Adventure Science: Argumentation and modeling in Earth Science using free online modules

Science is not (all) about facts. There are unknown questions to be answered, unknown discoveries to be made. So, how do we engage students with those unknowns and have them explore the sources of scientific uncertainty? To prepare students to weigh arguments and make informed decisions, we need instruction that promotes coherent understanding of data, as well as the factors that influence how certain we can be of the data. The Concord Consortium's High-Adventure Science project has created six investigations for middle and high school students that focus on current, compelling, unanswered scientific questions.

Each free online five-day investigation incorporates interactive dynamic computer models and real-world data. Students use computational models to quickly explore the behavior of Earth's complex systems and develop uncertainty-infused scientific arguments. Students make claims based on evidence from the models, compare their results to real-world data, justify their claims, and describe what influenced their confidence in their claims.

This presentation will focus on how students' content and scientific argumentation skills are changed through the process of teaching students how to think explicitly about certainty with respect to data and the use of interactive models. Especially in frontier science, such as climate change research, or fresh water availability where claims can be disputed and changes arise as new evidence is produced, this level of critical thinking is a key skill for students to develop.

Presenter : Amy Pallant, Concord Consortium, Senior Research Scientist

The registration deadline for this webinar is April 10 .

Publish Date: 
Monday, April 9, 2018 - 12:15pm