From the President
In
my first message as president, I want to thank my predecessors, Andy Buddington and Jenny Thomson, for the tremendous job
they did organizing, sustaining, and stimulating the Pacific Northwest Section
of NAGT. I am excited to play a part in this organization because I get
energized every time we meet. It makes me feel that I am not alone in the
trenches but instead am working with many kindred spirits toward shared goals,
driven by a common belief in the importance of geoscience education. As
president, I want to make sure all members feel such a sense of camaraderie.
A good example of an energizing
meeting was Bellingham
this past June (more on page 6). I found the field trips and presentations
informative and open to discussion and debate, as they should be. In the field,
we learned how much has been pinned down in the tectonically mobile San Juan Islands and western North Cascade, and which
geological questions have yet to be resolved. These places are crucial to the
tectonic history of the PNW. Knowing about such geology in greater depth and
from personal experience enables all who went on the field trips to teach it
better. The fact that we got to spend two brilliantly sunny summer days on the
shores of beautiful islands and in the forested lap of craggy mountains is the type of perk that we
all enjoy, a benefit of being a member of NAGT PNW.
Although the value of our
profession may seem obvious to us, we have to keep making the case that what we
do as geoscience teachers is important, without doubt. In my home state of Washington, the
graduation requirements for high school students are planned to include
standardized tests on science, including earth science (page 4, this issue).
Although not everyone supports standardized tests, I find it encouraging that
earth science is in there along with chemistry, physics, and biology. In a
world that reels from news of events like Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, spiking oil and gasoline prices,
and evidence of global warming correlated with the combustion of fossil fuels,
I am hopeful that there is an increasing public awareness of the need for earth
science knowledge. I think that each of you who has geoscience knowledge, and
who teaches earth science, possess rare skills and exceptional value,
regardless of what it may say on your pay stub.
As we look ahead to our future
meetings and development as professionals, I expect to be involved in lively
discussion on many exciting and challenging fronts, including:
·
Keeping geoscience on equal footing with the
other basic sciences in times of tight education budgets and well-funded
sophistries such as “intelligent design.”
·
Managing the erosion of barriers between
geography and geology, as GIS and GPS technologies keep expanding (how many
computer-using kids have not used
Google Earth recently?
·
Making best use of technology to advance our
students abilities and opportunities.
·
Linking global (“satellite views”) of earth
systems with detailed and verifiable data gathered up close and in person
(“ground truth”).
·
Getting
out from behind the lectern more. Research makes it clear lectures alone are
not the best use of class time. To enable students to comprehend and apply
concepts, lectures should be a limited part of a mixture that also includes
__________ what? You fill in the blank.
I am interested in what you think
the NAGT PNW section can do for you, and what you want to do for the section.
Serendipitously enough, one of the best things that you can do for the section
and one of the best things it can do for you centers on the same event—the
annual section meeting. Giving a talk or leading a field trip at the annual
meeting helps improve geoscience education in the Pacific
Northwest, advances your professional development, and gives you
the opportunity to more fully explore, refine, and share your own innovative
approaches. Those of us who have helped host one of our annual meetings can
tell you that the scale is small enough that it is a manageable amount of work.
As I have experienced it, helping to put on one of our annual meetings is
richly rewarding.
Our next meeting as the PNW
section of NAGT will be in Portland, June
19-22, 2007. Wine-lovers among us need not worry; Scott Burns is involved
and will have some more to teach us about the relationship between the vine and
the earth. There will be other great field trips and activities as well, so
start penciling in your calendars and look for the details (page 5, this issue
).
As for what else the NAGT PNW can
do for you, let me know. I look forward to hearing how you fill in the blank,
and what the rest of us can do to help you.
Dr. Ralph Dawes,
Wenatchee Valley
College
Wenatchee, Washington
Outstanding Earth Science Teacher
2006 Winner
Ron Metzger, Southwestern Oregon Community College
The Pacific Northwest Section OEST award this year
goes to Jodie Harnden of Sunridge Middle School
in Pendleton, Oregon.
Ms. Harnden is an experienced middle school educator with over two
decades of classroom experience. Jodie
has had a number of publications in the National Science Teachers Association
(NSTA) journal Science Scope, Oregon
Science Teacher Association’s (OSTA) The
Science Teacher and the National Middle Level Science Teachers
Association’s (NMLSTA) Leveline. Jodie has been an active participant in each
of these organizations, having served as president of NMLSTA, an Affiliate
Director of NSTA and an OSTA Board Director.
Currently Jodie serves as secretary for OSTA and is running for an NSTA
Director position. She is involved in
numerous state level groups and projects including Science Content and
Assessment Panel, Hydromania Teacher Program, S’COOL Project (NASA),
Oregon-Online instructor (Southern Oregon ESD) and is an adjunct geology
faculty member at Blue Mountain C.C.
Jodie has recently received National Board Certification in Early
Adolescence: Science. She is also a past
winner of an NAGT Dorothy L. Stout Professional Development Grant. The PNW section is fortunate to have
educators like Jodie Harnden that bring their passion for earth science and
teaching our youth to their classrooms.
Maybe her most significant contribution appears in the comments from
students and family, including “It’s time to go already?” and “My child talks
about science all the time.” It is with
great pleasure that the Pacific Northwest
section of NAGT recognizes Jodie Harnden as an outstanding teacher.
2006 Section
Election Results
For those of you unlucky enough
to miss hearing the results at the June PNW NAGT conference in Bellingham, you have
probably been eagerly, perhaps even ANXIOUSLY awaiting the May 2006 voting
results for our Section’s officers.
After tallying a record number of votes, the officers are:
President- Ralph
Dawes, Wenatchee
Valley College
Vice-President- Ron Metzger, Southwestern Oregon Community College
Secretary/Treasurer- Bob
Christman, Western
Washington University
Newsletter Editor- Cassie Strickland, Yakima
Valley Community
College
OEST Coordinator- Davene Meehan, Oak Harbor,
WA
State/Province Councilors-
Alaska-
Cathy Connor, Univ. Alaska
Southeast, Juneau
Michael Collins, Anchorage
British
Columbia- Mary Lou Bevier, Univeresity
of British Columbia
Brett
Gilley, Douglas
College
Idaho- Shawn Willsey, College of Southern Idaho
Oregon- Joe Graf, Southern Oregon University
Tom Lindsay, Portland State
University
Washington- Joe Hull, Seattle Central
Community College
Jeff Tepper, University of Puget Sound
Congratulations to all of the
new/returning officers, and thank you for voting!
Coming, Going, Shuffling
Kathryn Hoppe has joined the geoscience faculty at Green
River Community College, teaching geology, oceanography and
interdisciplinary science. Kathryn has
degrees from Washington University, the University of Washington
and UC Santa Cruz, and has taught at Bellevue C.C., North Seattle C.C. and the
UW. Her research interests include isotopes, paleontology and
ecology. You can send her a welcoming email at khoppe@greenriver.edu.
The
University
of British Columbia
hired Dr Sara Harris in fall 2005 as
an additional faculty member specializing in earth science teaching within the
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences.
Sara's background is in geology and geological oceanography, and in
addition to her course duties in EOS, which include coordinating (and teaching
parts of) five sections of a large 1st year Natural Disasters course, she will
be involved in the Environmental Sciences program and the Carl Weiman Science
Education Initiative (more on CWSEI below).
State by State
British Columbia, Yukon,
Idaho, Oregon
& Washington
British Columbia
State Councilors: Mary Lou Bevier & Brett Gilley
·
Carl
Weiman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI). Nobel Prize winner Dr. Carl Weiman is coming to the
University of British Columbia (UBC) in January
2007 to begin the CWSEI, a program that he has already started at University of Colorado. All science departments at UBC
will be competing for funds to upgrade science education, and the Department of
Earth and Ocean Sciences (EOS) at UBC has a committee chaired by Dr. Sara Harris that will be submitting
a proposal shortly. This proposal will be a department-wide effort to improve
science teaching via increasing use of educational technology and
student-centered learning.
·
Teachers'
Resource Centre, Vancouver. The Teachers' Resource Centre is now active
within the Pacific Museum of the Earth
in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at UBC; it provides materials and
curricula for K-12 earth science teachers. Contact Curator Mackenzie Parker <mparker@eos.ubc.ca>
for details.
·
BC
Colleges and Universities Earth Science Articulation Committee Meeting, May
2007. Hosted by UBC-EOS, the Committee meets once-a-year as
mandated by provincial legislation. Representatives from all of the colleges
and universities in BC meet to discuss issues related to the smooth transfer of
credit for students who change institutions within the province. This process
has been very successful. If anyone from the Pacific NW Section of NAGT would
like to attend this meeting to see how the process works, please contact Mary Lou Bevier <mbevier@eos.ubc.ca> this fall.
Idaho
State Councilor:
Shawn Willsey
·
Scholarship
Opportunity. Applications for field scholarships
through the Tobacco Root Geological Society are due by February 1, 2007.
For more info, go to: http://trgs.org/scholar.htm
·
32nd
Annual Tobacco Root Geological Society Field Conference. The TRGS field conference will be in Dillon, Montana,
August 2-5, 2007. For more info, contact Rob
Thomas r_thomas@umwestern.edu, or go
online to http://trgs.org/
Washington
State
Councilors: Joe Hull & Jeff Tepper
·
Global Warming Symposium, February 28th,
2007. Yakima
Valley Community
College in Yakima,
WA will host a symposium
entitled: YVCC Student Symposium on
Global Warming: An Investigation of the
Science, Sociology and Politics of Global Warming. This student-hosted symposium will take place in the
Parker Room at the Deccio Higher Education Center, on the Yakima Campus at 12th
and Arlington Avenues. Using an
interdisciplinary approach, students from both the Grandview and Yakima
campuses will explore not only the science and history of atmospheric warming,
but also the effects this trend may have on society, especially Eastern
Washington’s agriculturally-based, irrigation-dependant economy. Students will also examine how humans have
created the current problem, and discuss the political nature of a global
solution. This event is free and open to
the public. For more information, please
call Claire Carpenter at 509.574.4866 or email ccarpenter@yvcc.edu
State
of Earth Science:
Is the WASL a sound metric for assessing
geological comprehension?
Joe Hull, Seattle Central
Community College
The flip side to the
Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALR) is the Washington Assessment of
Student Learning or WASL. How is geology
tested by the WASL? For sample
questions, go to:
http://www.k12.wa.us/assessment/WASL/testquestions.aspx
Here’s one for
grade 10 on continental collision: “What would be the result when two continental plates collide?”
A. The plates would stop moving
where the continents collided.
B. After the collision, the continental
plates would immediately start to move apart.
C. The crust would fold,
creating a mountain range where the continental plates collided.
D. Volcanic activity associated
with hot spot would appear where the continental plates collided.
