Alaska Pacific University is a private, liberal arts institution with undergraduate degree programs in Business Administration, Education with K-8 certification, Environmental Science, Liberal Studies, Human Services and Psychology. This proposal seeks to secure one-year funding in an effort to modify the existing SC 100 Integrated Science class, making it more in line with Alaska and national standards in science education. We are certain that the modified course will provide preservice K-8 teachers and non-science majors with sufficient experiences in science to measurably assist them in gaining scientific literacy. The new course will incorporate four themes to guide students in their gaining scientific literacy: Origin of the Earth, Origin of Life, Earth Systems and Human Impact; and five science strands: physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and geology. The scientific processes, hands-on demonstrations and relevant laboratory exercises will be woven throughout the eleven-week course.

The present SC 100 course is a four-credit with lab class that is taught in the fall and spring semesters for a eleven-week period and in a five-week block or session during the summer. During the past two years, five different instructors have taught the course, each with different science backgrounds and expertise and each employing their own syllabus and methods of instruction. Typically, students meet forty hours each in lecture and laboratory for the duration of the course.

SC 100 satisfies the laboratory science portion of the general undergraduate requirements, making it a popular course for all non-science majors. The teacher education program recognizes SC 100 as fulfilling the laboratory science requirement for teaching methods classes preparation. It is imperative that this course is designed to provide excellent science background, content and relevant hands-on experiences to promote scientific literacy. Preservice teachers will graduate to share their scientific knowledge and understanding with their students and will join their non-science major peers in becoming better informed citizens.

The following National Standards are addressed in the following ways during the SC 100 Integrated Science class:

Science content to be addressed will include science as inquiry, physical science, life science, Earth and space science, science and technology, science in personal and social perspectives and the history and nature of science. Preservice teachers will be involved in active investigations of scientific phenomena in laboratory situations in each thematic section of the course. They will be expected to research their own interests in developing a presentation for their classmates addressing current scientific problems, issues or topics of concern. Human and technological scientific resources will be introduced and available for student use. A constructivist approach to teaching will be employed, allowing students opportunities to build upon existing knowledge while replacing erroneous information and ideas with current and proven information. Students will reflect upon their learning by critically analyzing their own progress as the course unfolds, commenting on the information, the processes of teaching and learning involved and the relevance and interest of material being studied. With emphasis on group work and information sharing, students will use collaborative efforts to learn and study science.

Throughout their learning in SC 100, students will be provided with modeling of successful practices in teaching and learning. Appropriate grade or age levels for understanding of content will be discussed, and demonstrated in some instances. Field trips and experiences in outdoor environments, informal science facilities and formal science labs will be included in the instruction. Active learning will be structured to allow students to question their own knowledge bases, providing opportunities for them to update this knowledge and experience the thrills of doing science. A combination of discovery learning and guided practice will be incorporated into laboratory sessions and classroom demonstrations and lectures.

Students in SC 100 will develop an ability for lifelong science learning and science literacy development by becoming familiar with current advances and studies in science. They will actively seek research articles and reports to support or refute information known or presented in the classroom. They will engage in science processes to initiate experiments, collect and record data and interpret results. They will have access to human and technological resources to assist in their continued science learning.

During their studies, students in SC 100 will collaborate with one another, the teachers and community members to assist in their learning. They will be asked to comment on their own progress and the quality of the materials and content involved with each theme in the course. Suggestions will be used to improve, to the best of the teachers' abilities, the instruction and structure of subsequent topics, themes or courses. They will be asked to discuss how their training may or may not be used in their future classrooms.

The course instructors will work together in a true teaming approach to make learning happen in the classroom. Inquiry will be used to introduce topics and laboratory experiences with hands-on demonstrations and technological presentations used in each lecture session. Duties for materials preparation and content presentation will be shared for each session, with both instructors present during all sessions. Discrepant events, scientific fact quizzes and trivia contests will be incorporated to challenge students and heighten their interest and enthusiasm about science. Connections of science and other disciplines, art, history, language arts, mathematics, social studies, health and physical education will be emphasized. Current scientific literature as well as "science for the lay person" will be utilized to facilitate different levels of knowledge and understanding.

Formative assessments will be carried out at the beginning and end of each thematic portion of the course. Pretests for information understanding will be followed by post tests when themes have been completed. students will also be asked to critique several aspects of the theme covered: interest level of material, teaching approaches used, difficulty of understanding content, and comments to improve future instruction. Assessments will be both written and in application form. Learning logs will be collected and read by teachers prior to each laboratory experience.

A summative assessment will ask students to apply their newly gained or fortified knowledge to selected problems. An overall evaluation of the course will be enacted to assess the effectiveness of the instruction, the quality of the content and materials provided and the format of the course- timelines, grading and expectations. Students will also reflect upon their own learning and any changes in attitude toward learning or teaching science that may have occurred as a result of SC 100.

The teachers of SC 100 will require students to procure Internet accounts to facilitate collaboration within the class population as well as distance communications with others around the world. Questions for discussion will be posted to e-mail and on a SC 100 home page to promote this process. Attempts will be made to use the most recent technology available to demonstrate content provided. Visits to existing laboratories, video tapes of current practices and technology explanation and continued access to the World Wide Web will provide students with opportunities to use technology and witness technological advances in action. The relationships among science, technology and society will be addressed throughout the course of study.

By teaching preservice teachers science using national and state standards, innovative practices and current materials, and incorporating technology to facilitate their learning, we will be preparing them to teach in the same way. Teachers of grades K - 8 are predominantly female, hence the expected enrollment in SC 100 will also be. Having a female instructor to represent female perspectives in science will be a positive experience for all members of the class. Especially in science, we teach as we were taught. In this instance, a golden opportunity is present for changing how science will be presented by future Alaskan teachers and learned by future Alaskan students. Student populations in urban Alaska (Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau) are becoming more culturally diverse while rural communities continue to be predominantly Alaska Native (more than 90%). At Alaska Pacific University, we train teachers for all communities in Alaska with an increasing number of our graduates starting their teaching careers in rural, culturally diverse and underserved learning communities.

The instructors of the course will represent two departments, science and education, hence their learning gained from student comments will influence how courses are taught in both departments. The success of the course will be reported to the university administration and the entire university learning community, to include the public schools, federal and state agencies involved in education.

NASA's Mission to Planet Earth (Earth Sciences) materials, including the Earth Orbiting System posters, will be used extensively in the Earth Systems, Saving the Earth and Human Impact sections of SC 100. As students interact with the materials and content in this NASA Strategic Enterprise, they will be increasing their understanding of the total Earth system and effects of humans on the global environment, in keeping with the goals of the enterprise. In addition, this new knowledge and understanding will be shared with elementary and middle school children (K-8) when the preservice teachers present lessons in local public schools and later, when they teach science in their own classrooms. This will ultimately support student enrichment and research opportunities to train the next generation of Earth system scientists. All class members will be meeting objective 2.2 of the MTPE Strategic Enterprise Plan, "to foster the development of an informed and environmentally aware public."

Addressing Scientific Research, Aeronautics, Human Exploration and Development of Space and Space Technology will be accomplished with NASA videos, software, and printed material available through the Alaska Pacific University's (APU) Alaska Science Center (ASC) and NASA Teacher Resource Center (NTRC). News making and current events occurring in the NASA space program will also be monitored by students on the World Wide Web, including Spacelink, Mission to Planet Earth and other NASA sites. The instructors will create a SC 100 site to be used for posting information regarding the class, student projects and links to NASA sites, making the information available to the global learning community. Especially in Alaska, where people are few and the miles between them are many, this site will provide a new resource of high interest to learners of all ages.

The local school district in Anchorage and selected others in the state will be contacted to provide input regarding the appropriateness of materials being learned for several grade levels. Students will be required to teach a "science lesson" of their choice to public school children to better understand the teaching/learning process.

Schools with student teachers who completed the SC 100 course will be asked to evaluate the methods incorporated by that student teacher in her/his science teaching. Teachers in Alaska school districts may be offered opportunities to take the class for staff development credit in the future.

Two graduate students, one from the Environmental Science Department and one from the Education Department, will assist in preparing for instruction, presenting material, conducting laboratories, collecting data and evaluating the course. They will assist students with problem solving of all types and provide opportunities for additional collaboration in the classroom and less formal settings.

As previously mentioned, the Environmental Science and Education Departments will work collaboratively to assure the success of this course. Because we are a small institution and "word travels fast", the entire university will be initially aware of and will later be watching the course with interest. Our plans will be presented to the administration, our respective departments and then the greater university community prior to initiation of the course. Updates will be made as the course progresses and professors across campus will be invited to attend classes to experience what we are doing.

Each theme will be taught for a two-week period, with two application laboratory sessions included. Theme and course evaluations will be conducted at the end of each theme (formative). Content inventories will be conducted before (pretest) and after each theme (post test - summative). Learning journal data will be collected and recorded each week. The final course evaluations will be conducted during the final or eleventh week of the course.

Students: Comparisons will be made between pre- and post test scores in each theme (content) area to determine knowledge and application abilities changes. Changes in student attitudes toward learning/teaching science will also be determined by comparing pre- and post test results. On-going reflective journals will provide teachers with comments regarding student perceptions of what is and what is not working.

Faculty: Instructors and graduate assistants will discuss each class, recording perceptions of success, discomfort and bafflement. A weekly meeting to review journal comments and test scores/performances will be conducted with results recorded for future reference. Following the second semester, data will be reviewed and an article for publication will be written. A presentation will be prepared for APU and other audiences.

Community: Learning community members not directly involved in the class, but who are willing to observe and participate, will be asked to give candid comments regarding the session(s) they attend. Results of the course evaluations will be provided for the departments and university learning community when they have been tabulated and interpreted.

Data will be collected from students, graduate assistants and teachers to determine the changes in attitude toward science learning/teaching in each student group-- preservice teachers and nonscience majors. Some data will be quantitative and some qualitative, giving opportunities to both measure responses and possibly determine why specific responses were given. Interpretations and statistical analyses will be accomplished by the two instructors.

Data gathered from pre and post tests for content understanding and application will be used to determine the amount and significance of change for each theme. It is anticipated that dependent upon student background, some content will show more significant changes than others.

The results of this study will be made available to the NOVA team for eventual dissemination in training sessions or written format. The teachers will co-author an article for publication following conclusion of the course and preparation and interpretation of the data to be submitted to the Journal of Teacher Education, a publication of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). In addition, a proposal for presentation will be submitted to the National Science Teachers Association for the National Conference in 1999.