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TEACHING AND LEARNING PORTFOLIO by Scott Spak August, 2008 This portfolio submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Delta Certificate in Research, Teaching, and Learning. Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Page 1: TEACHING AND LEARNING PORTFOLIO - Delta Program … ·  · 2012-05-143 Acknowledgements This ... Reflective Statements ... The development and presentation of a teaching and learning

TEACHING AND LEARNING PORTFOLIO

by

Scott Spak

August, 2008

This portfolio submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Delta Certificate in Research, Teaching, and Learning.

Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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The Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning is a project of the Center forthe Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL—Grant No. 0227592).CIRTL is a National Science Foundation sponsored initiative committed to developingand supporting a learning community of STEM faculty, post-docs, graduate students,and staff who are dedicated to implementing and advancing effective teachingpractices for diverse student audiences. Any opinions, findings and conclusions orrecommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do notnecessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

For more information, please call (608) 261-1180 or visit http://www.delta.wisc.edu

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AcknowledgementsThis portfolio is the product of a diverse group of learning communities in which Ihave had the privilege of participating. In fact, my decision to participate in Delta wasthe only completely independent activity I undertook in the pursuit of the certificate inResearch, Teaching, and Learning. Everything else has been reached throughcollaboration, shared learning, and outright guidance.

I am deeply grateful to Dolly Ledin for giving me the unique opportunity to be a partof the “Paradise Lost? Climate Change in the Northwoods” art exhibit and communityeducation project, and for agreeing to serve as my internship partner. This began acascading series of experiences over the course of three years that have done much todefine my identity as an educator and a Wisconsinite. Dolly also called me aclimatologist in public often enough that I now believe it. I am so thrilled to be a partof “Paradise Lost?” and thank Dolly, Terry Daulton, and the artists, professors, andeducators who worked to make it a wonderful learning experience for me and manytens of thousands of visitors. The team that has worked with me in developing the“Paradise Lost? Teaching About Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region” curriculumframework has taught me so much about how good teachers practice their craft, asindividuals and as a team sport: Justin Bagley, Tracey Leider, Diane O’Krongly, DonVincent, Zach Wilson, and Sarah Wright.

A big part of my participation in Delta has been gaining experience in teaching. I thankJames Pawley, Jon Foley, and Tracey Holloway for providing me opportunities to guestlecture and try out new lessons, and for great feedback on my classroom work. I alsothank Tracey Holloway, my thesis advisor and mentor, for always supporting andencouraging my participation in teaching in general, in Delta in particular, and for allof the advice.

My heroes have always been teachers. I thank Erica Howard for introducing me toDelta and successfully modeling the ridiculous idea that one can fully participate inthis experience, complete a PhD. at SAGE at a reasonable pace, and remain fullyhuman. Dan Vimont further helped normalize the incorporation of Delta programsand techniques to improve teaching in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences. It hasbeen my great pleasure to learn how to conduct outreach in atmospheric science fromSteve Ackerman and Jon Martin, Wisconsin Public Radio’s Weather Guys, through fiveyears of Friday road trips through the Badger State.

Whether nature or nurture, I have become a teacher as I learned from my family ofteachers: Mrs. Helene Spak, Professional Development Coordinator,Middle School Reading/Language Arts Coordinator, and Gifted Education Coordinator,Northbrook School District 27, Northbrook, Illinois; Professor Donald Spak, Chicago-Kent College of Law; and Ms. Nancy Spak, Sharon Middle School, Sharon,Massachusetts. They should probably be held responsible. I thank my wife, RachaelCarlson, who has obligingly critiqued my performance at the lectern when asked,filmed me teaching and sat with me as I watched the gut-wrenching videos,accompanied me all over Wisconsin speaking and filming for the “Paradise Lost?” artexhibit and curriculum framework, and got me off to class on time.

Finally, I would not have developed a scholarly approach to teaching without thetraining, scaffolding, and generous help of Delta faculty and staff: Don Gillian-Daniel,Tessa Lowinske Desmond, Mitchell Nathan, Chris Pfund, and Michel Wattieux.

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About this Teaching and Learning Portfolio

This portfolio serves to record my personal reflections andobjectives in teaching and learning, connect them to myexperiences, and help me integrate and make sense of themall as part of an intentional practice of taking a scholarlyapproach to teaching and learning. My practice is aimed atimproving not only my own teaching and my capacity as aresearcher, but also the quality of teaching and learningtaking place around me.

Teaching and learning is my life’s work, and one of the most important things I do forthe world. This portfolio is not meant to chronicle my experiences as a learner, teacher,or mentor. In fact, it does not even catalog all of my teaching activities from a single(albeit sprawling) project on climate change in the Great Lakes region. What itdocuments is how I think about teaching and learning, hopefully providing enoughcontext to illustrate the training and circumstances that have shaped my thinking.

Compiled throughout my graduate career, this document is currently the product ofroughly equal parts action and reflection, prompted and guided by my participation inDelta. As I gain additional experience, I look to use this portfolio as a tool by which touse new experiences to steadily refine my philosophies on teaching and learning, andas a cue to mindfully maintain a conscious aim of continuous improvement in how Iapproach academics and outreach.

Thanks for reading!

Scott Spak

Madison, Wisconsin

August 2008

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Table of Contents

The Delta Certificate in Research, Teaching, and Learning 6

Teaching Philosophy 7

Reflective Statements

- What I Learned from Developing Paradise Lost?

Teaching About Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region

10

- Reflections on a Personal History of Diversity in Learning 12

- Why I Am Committed To Learning Through Diversity 13

Artifacts

Delta Internship Final Summative Report:

How Can Teachers Learn What Students Need To Know About Climate

Change?

15

Appendix A. Course Announcement Flyer 24

Appendix B. Suggested Hierarchical Ranking of Concepts 25

Appendix C: Binned Short Answer Responses 25

Appendix D. Survey Instrument 27

Excerpts from my Teaching-as-Research Log:

on the Basic Climate Change Talk

30

Testimonials & Letters of Recognition 32

Curriculum Vitae 35

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The Delta Certificate in Research, Teaching, and Learning

As a graduate student, I participated in the Delta Program in Research, Teaching andLearning, a learning community for graduate students, post-docs, academic staff, andfaculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Its purpose is to improve studentlearning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields throughprofessional development for current and future faculty.

The three central pillars of the Delta program are:

• Teaching-as-research: “The deliberate, systematic, and reflective use of researchmethods to develop and implement teaching practices that advance the learningexperiences and learning outcomes of students and teachers.”

• Learning community: “Bringing together groups of people for shared learning,discovery, and the generation of knowledge.”

• Learning through diversity: “Drawing upon the diversity of students to enhance andenrich learning for all.”

I earned the Delta Certificate in Research, Teaching, and Learning in August 2008 bycompleting:

a. Two graduate courses on teaching and learning

1. Diversity in the College Classroom (EPD 690), Summer 2006. Foundational study ofthe topic of diversity, research on bias, educational sciences literature on ways ofknowing, ways of learning and ways to address diversity.

2. The College Classroom (InterL&S 875), Fall 2006. Introduction to educationalsciences literature on teaching and learning, assessment, and evaluation.Developed a teaching philosophy, created instructional materials for a new courseon energy forecasting, and assessed my own brief “micro-teaching” to my peers.

b. Extended participation in a Delta learning community

I participated in Expeditions in Learning in Spring 2008, exploring different learningtechniques in locations on and off campus and meeting regularly with a small group ofstaff, post-docs, and graduate students to discuss readings on teaching and learning.

c. An applied teaching-as-research internship

I co-developed and designed assessment for a web-based conceptual framework onclimate change [artifact: Delta Internship Final Summative Report] and joined a cohortof interns in the Delta internship seminar (ELPA 502) in Fall 2007.

d. The development and presentation of a teaching and learning portfolio

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Teaching PhilosophyMy objective as an educator is to guide students to an understanding of the Earthsystem, the processes that drive it, and the historical, current, and potential roles ofhumans within it. In support of this goal, I teach students to synthesize concepts,master analytical tools, communicate effectively, and process multiple informationstreams.

Teaching about climate, air quality, and science-policy to undergraduates is exciting,because students increasingly see the importance to society, and to their world. Theinteractions I study between climate and air quality are a particularly valuable way toengage this interest, since they are rapidly responsive to policy; directly observable;readily measured and modeled by students; and provide an accessible gateway tointerdisciplinary study of earth systems science; as well as disciplinary study in fluiddynamics, radiation, organic and inorganic chemistry, environmental policy, energy,and remote sensing.

My approach to undergraduate education, rooted in my experiences, is to search foranswers to two key questions: (1) What do students really need to know? and (2) Bywhat means can they effectively learn it? In doing so, I strive to incorporate in myteaching the practices I value:

What Works for Students – I believe in teaching according to what works for students.I unite best practices substantiated by pedagogical theory with the independent dataof my own teaching and learning experiences, both formal and informal. I constantlystrive to ask questions of my teaching, and of my students’ learning, then designclassroom experiences to gain insight. I have learned to accept these answers,pursuing the methods most helpful for student learning, even if they are not alwaysmy preferred style.

In approaching teaching as a research activity, I have pursued a course of study in theUniversity of Wisconsin’s Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning todevelop a scholarly teaching practice supported by foundational knowledge in theeducational sciences. This combination of coursework, an applied internship, andparticipation in Delta’s learning communities has taught me how to integrate thefeedback I seek from students and faculty into a cohesive path for development as aneducator, iterating on teaching methods with the experimental rigor I apply toscientific endeavors. I plan to continue to systematically apply the scientific method toimprove my teaching techniques, and amend them as theory and my own experiencesevolve. In order to expand my understanding of the state of the science and art ofteaching, I regularly read publications ranging from peer-reviewed journals to theChronicle of Higher Education and teachers’ blogs.

I also plan to be an active member of the community of pedagogical research on theatmospheric sciences, sharing and publishing on my experiences applying techniquesfor communicating specific concepts in climate and climate policy—subjects that areincreasingly taught in college classrooms and addressed in community outreach, butremain little-studied from a pedagogical perspective. I have begun this process bycontributing the core science concepts for a K12 curriculum framework on climatechange and its impacts on the Upper Midwest. Through this continuing educationprogram for teachers, I used surveys to determine teachers’ needs, evaluated how well

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this framework addressed them, and assessed how prior knowledge led to biases inthe concepts high school science teachers find important and expect to teach.

What Works for the Audience – Pedagogical content knowledge is more than “howto teach a specific concept.” It should also include “to a particular learningcommunity.” I have taught about global and regional climate to: teenagers, as theleader of a summer wilderness education program; UW-Madison science and non-science majors, as a guest lecturer; high school teachers, in a series of graduatecourses and workshops; and artists, in my role as science advisor for “Paradise Lost?Artists on Climate Change in the Northwoods.” Through work with this diverse rangeof learners, in a diversity of learning contexts, I have learned that there are someuniversal lessons, but many that must be tailored to student expectations, skills, andcomfort zones. An effective content delivery system for 40 teenagers in a field is activeand interpersonal, whereas undergraduate engineering majors preferred a passivelearning structure with lecture and rapid-fire graphs, while musicians and visual artistswanted to explore concepts through individual and small group activities and Q&Asessions.

Teaching through Structure – An effective liberal arts education employs learningstructures that work for students in the present, while preparing them for constructivecollaboration in the workforce, and in their communities. The undergraduate years area massive Zone of Proximal Development, where learning outside the classroom istransmitted through both content and structure, especially in student-run activitiesand athletics. In these situations, students are independently invested as activeparticipants for their own satisfaction as well as extrinsic benefits (networking,resume-building), and are motivated to succeed while accepting that they arelearning, and learning the process of working together in a successful endeavor. Imimic this student-centered, collaborative approach and structure the project oflearning with the teacher as coach and project manager. I combine directed Socraticcontent sessions, individual and team application to real-world problems, and guidedstudent-centric discussion to keep students from switching to a passive learningmode. In this context, the role of the student is to take responsibility for her ownlearning, as well as contributing to the learning of her peers. The teacher is to providethe learning structure, motivation, and, within it, to demonstrate, explain, and helpstudents assess their progress.

Undergraduate Research – Undergraduate research has gradually become acornerstone of my professional activities. To date, I have helped mentor sixUndergraduate Research Scholars and student hourlies in seven projects. Shortprojects, such as statistical analysis of global climate and local air quality, have provento be an excellent structure for engaging students, building statistical literacy andresearch “chops,” and exploring physical processes. These projects provide a meansfor introducing students to the process of science as a professional and outreachactivity, leading to publication of policy-relevant knowledge that they, and theircommunities, value. Moreover, working with undergraduates—keeping in mind theirskill sets and the time they can devote to research—provides a structure to theorganization of a flurry of research activities, demanding that big ideas beimplemented in discrete, tractable projects.

Many Ways of Knowing and Learning – Concepts are made accessible to all studentswhen the many ways of knowing are activated, per Gardner’s Theory of Multiple

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Intelligences. I often use multiple means of explanation, exploration, and evaluation todrive home key concepts. For instance, when I teach the Coriolis effect—the change invelocity due to the Earth’s rotation—I eventually get to the traditional blackboardexercises with equations and force diagrams, but the lessons first involve studentsindependently examining recent local airmass trajectories using an online dispersionmodel (HYSPLIT), plus a game in which students walk on a football field and move in arandom direction, deflected laterally based on their distance from the fifty-yard line;from their paths on the field, they regroup and identify that they have given rise toequatorial doldrums, mid-latitude westerlies, and polar vortices. After this set ofexercises, students remember the existence of the effect, as well as magnitude anddirection of the imparted “spin,” more effectively than through memorizing andmanipulating equations alone, and with more opportunities for self-evaluation.

I believe in using multiple ways of knowing in exploring the different values anddecision-making frameworks that drive and decide policy. The leaders of the futurewill be expected to work with, explain to, and motivate people with vastly differentvalues and plans for the future of our world. For me, the challenge of buildingconstructively on diversity in the classroom means preparing students to excel in theadvanced material culture of one worldview while teaching them to understand,value, and work for all.

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Reflective StatementsWhat I Learned from Developing Paradise Lost?Teaching About Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region

More than any other experience, my Delta internship has had a profound influence onmy understanding of the dynamic interplay between teaching, research, andcommunity involvement. I attribute this change to the depth of my involvement in theproject, and its intransient presence in my life over two years. Before the internship, Iwas confident that I knew how I, theoretically, approached this synthesis. I drew fromthe sum of a large number of shorter, less integrated teaching and learningexperiences, and pulled these lessons together with theory learned from Delta coursesand workshops. The internship, however, trained me to develop a conscious, sustainedpractice in one focused set of concepts:

1. What are the important concepts that high school students must learn toadequately understand the basics of global climate change, its regional impacts,and potential measures for mitigation and adaptation?

2. What do teachers feel that they need in order to teach effectively about climatechange?

3. How do teachers’ prior experiences and preconceptions influence what theybelieve to be important? Accounting for these preconceptions, how can they bestlearn what they need to know?

It is through the in-depth exploration of this single set of concepts, as part of a diverseteam of educators and researchers, that I have come to understand and inhabit thesynergistic benefits of combining teaching-as-research (TAR), shared learning, anddiversity in the learning and learning design process.

Teaching as Research

As an extended application, the internship has made TAR a persistent, "sticky" part ofhow I—consciously and subconsciously—view my academic activities. Because I wasapproaching this experience through Delta, the TAR paradigm informed the processand structure of the project from the beginning. I convinced the team at our firstmeeting that question 1 was best addressed as a backwards design project. I alsofound that the iterative nature of the scientific method aligned very well with theiterative process of preparing a web-based teaching resource, in that each wave ofnew findings and ideas was easily implemented in the beta site's format and content,and the web allowed me to address new follow-up questions quickly.

A more personal influence of TAR related to my internship was my own iterativeapproach to improving the boilerplate “crash course in climate change” presentation Iwas asked to give at least 15 times, at workshops, gallery openings, in classrooms, andto student groups. I kept a log of each performance [artifact: Excerpts from myTeaching-as-Research Log: on the Basic Climate Change Talk], chronicling successesand areas in need of improvement, and training myself to reflect for a moment insteadof just teaching and moving on.

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Learning through Community

The internship team’s chosen approach incorporated shared learning in many phases.We chose and designed activities with group and discussion components forclassroom use, as well as for the teachers at our training sessions. We incorporatedvideos of regional private-sector, government, and academic researchers andpractitioners describing the questions they address, and the methods they use, inorder to demonstrate to students that studying climate and climatic change is adiverse, communal, inquiry-based activity, and that the climate impacts questions thatinterest professionals are essentially the same as those of interest to high schoolfreshmen. Seeing our successes at bringing community into a web-based teachingand learning resource, even without the explicitly communal aspects of user-based“Web 2.0” content creation, has given me experience in presenting content in waysthat foster group approaches to learning.

Learning through Diversity

Since elementary school, it has been my experience that working in a diverse groupled to improvements in the process and the end result, but it always felt like "snakeoil," and I had no mechanistic model of how or why it worked. It was a highlyunscientific way for a scientist to champion an approach. However, in this project, Ifound that working in a diverse design group, focused on these multiple needs, thebenefits of diversity that I saw were not merely from the application of "different viewsof the problem," but from our actively applying empathy in the design process. I cameto view my contributions and suggestions (and how I presented them), as well as ourproduct, from within the perspective, knowledge base, and needs of my colleaguesand our target audiences. In each instance, I tried to see the world as a high schoolstudent, a high school (physics, chemistry, biology, or environmental science) teacher,and an undergraduate biology major. When I wasn't certain how someone mightperceive my presentation of an idea, I asked, and through this feedback quicklyimproved my empathic model of the viewpoint of each of the stakeholder andcollaborator communities. While I had previously put myself in the shoes of the targetaudience in environmental education for teenagers, it was always a shift to the oneperspective that best represented the audience, not a diversity of viewpoints, and itwas mostly an intellectual exercise in remembering: how did my peers and I think andperceive as teenagers? In this project, I had to view the world in ways that I had neverdirectly experienced before, which brought an emotional openness to the experience.Thus, through the internship I developed, applied, and constantly re-evaluated myown mechanistic model of how diversity leads to process and improvements: bydirecting participants to relate through empathy.

The Delta internship has helped me condense my ideas around the process ofpedagogy into concrete, actionable activities, and provided the extended practice Ineeded to begin internalizing them.

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Reflections on a Personal History of Diversity in LearningBy equal parts chance and design, my own academic and professional histories havetaken me exclusively through diverse institutions. I have been fortunate to find myselfin schools that are unusually and consciously diverse, and part of finding myself inthese institutions has been a critical assessment of how to cultivate and sustaindiverse and inclusive communities, how to actively employ diversity to further theinstitutional mission, and how diversity impacts institutional identity.

I grew up in Evanston, Illinois, a city of unusual ethnic and socioeconomic diversity,and was inculcated with the practices and virtues of diversity well before I learned toread. My father was a member of the municipal Human Relations Commission. Iattended a K-8 experimental magnet school drawing from the entire city, carefullymanaged for diversity across all demographic dimensions, and named after MartinLuther King, Jr. The township high school I attended was frequently studied inacademic assessments of socioeconomic diversity in education, and my classmatesincluded 1st or 2nd-generation immigrants from more than 40 countries. I never had achance, and neither did any of the kids I knew: living with diversity, benefitingpersonally from a vibrant and heterogeneous community, was something we learnedfrom immersion, as a native language.

I went off to a college that was just as diverse on paper as my hometown, and nearlyas celebrated for its diversity, but it was an unnatural diversity. While every state,ethnicity, economic group, and physical ability level was represented, and the genderratio was maintained within 0.5% of 50:50, most of this diverse group was not used tolearning, or living, in a diverse and inclusive community. It was frustrating to find thatone cannot transfer the knowledge of how to interact inclusively, comfortably, ineither of the primary ways my peers had grown accustomed to quickly learning in andout of the classroom: osmosis from lecture and mimicking the cool kids. Instead, thecultural center of gravity was tolerant but less than embracing of diversity, because itusually took each individual a few years of trial and error, and awkward multiculturaldinners to figure it out. While the school prided itself on diversity, and did much tofoster it, the expected synergistic benefits of diversity materialized only fitfully.

After nearly three decades of observing so much emphasis of diversity in education onthe differences of ethnicity, disability, gender, economic background, age, andgeography, I have found that the most important diversities for me to address as aneducator are the deeper differences in value systems, goals, learning styles, andacademic proficiencies. These invariably arise in even the most demographicallyhomogenous groups, and I find them especially challenging and rewarding forstudents to bridge and learn from, because they require thinking about how it feelsnot to be different or live differently, but to think and feel differently. After ageneration of multiculturalism and inclusivity as the defining foci of diversity ineducation, it is my hope that institutions will more directly connect existing effortswith these deeper differences.

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Why I Am Committed To Learning Through DiversityI am strongly committed to learning through diversity for three reasons:

1. It just plain works. I’m willing to entertain any crazy ideology promoting effectivelearning, as long as it has practical results that can be empirically demonstrated andreadily implemented...preferably with a minimum of dangerous acute and long-termside effects. Diversity is something I have seen work repeatedly, throughout my life,and in many different circumstances, to boost the quality of the learning process, thequality of finished products of academic and real-world projects, and the percentageof learners who comprehend the lessons at hand. The conclusions I have reached frommy own experiences have also been found experimentally and reported in theeducational sciences literature [e.g. Turner, 2000]. I am not blinded by ideology and,yes, there are occasional conflicts and breakdowns in learning along the way, but Iconsistently find in the balance that these pitfalls are insignificant compared to thedemonstrable gains.

2. Learning in a diverse group engages and develops the empathic capacity ofhuman learners. As described in my final internship reflection, my Delta internshipexperience showed me that the activation of empathy is the causal mechanism bywhich learning through diversity works its magic. However, even if being part of adiverse group had no effect on the quality of learning, it would still be an essential partof my personal approach to teaching. I value empathy and advocate its concertedpractice as an essential skill—a superpower people forget they have—especially forthe students who I encounter because they aspire to be policymakers and leaders.More broadly, if a liberal arts education is meant to prepare students for life in a worldwhere some of the most prevalent foundational relationships among diverse groupsof people are those created by the globalized service economy and the politics ofidentity, then empathy deserves a direct role in the undergraduate curriculum.

3. Learning through diversity leads to knowledge that is less partial. At the mostbasic level, my academic work can be described as conducting research, sharing myfindings, and teaching in order to make our knowledge of the world more whole. Indoing so, I have found that the collective knowledge of many different ways of seeinga particular topic is greater than their sum—for those individual, partially erroneousglimpses come together to define the shape of the elusive truth.

Despite the propaganda of postmodern multiculturalism in higher education, I havelong suspected that there’s something deeper to a diverse learning community thanthe superficial aspect of merely bringing together a variety differing viewpoints andfinding whatever random syncretism emerges. After all, each individual view isinherently flawed and biased. Rather, it is through a systematic and scientific approachto synthesizing the kernels of truth in multiple views that diversity yields newknowledge, and I have found this theory resonate in the ways mechanistic andprobabilistic knowledge are combined in scientific research.

In the atmospheric sciences, we employ the statistical technique of data assimilation (aform of recursive Bayesian estimation) [Daley, 1991], in which many observations,large ensembles of models, and the errors of each observation and model arecombined to yield the most complete understanding of the atmospheric system. Dataassimilation studies in climate reanalysis, weather forecasting, and atmosphericchemistry consistently find that the average prediction of many observations and

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many models is always better than any individual contributing piece of empiricalinformation or theoretical calculation. Furthermore, when using artificial neuralnetworks to perform regression analyses, I have seen firsthand how adding additionallayers of neurons with different functions, which access different facets of the inputdata or process the results of communication between other neurons, also improvesthe quality of predictions. From my teaching and research experiences, I expect thatwhat has been learned about the tangible benefits of diversity in describing andestimating physical systems and performing artificial computation will also bedemonstrated scientifically for the bio-psycho-social system of human learning, and Ilook forward to seeing how it emerges.

References

Daley, R. (1991). Atmospheric data analysis. Cambridge University Press. I SBN0521458250, 9780521458252.

Turner, C.S.V. (2000). New faces, new knowledge. Academe, 36:34-37.

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ArtifactsDelta Internship Final Summative Report:How Can Teachers Learn What Students Need To Know AboutClimate Change?

I. Abstract

I used a Backwards Design approach to develop a hierarchical conceptual frameworkin support of “Paradise Lost? Teaching About Climate Change in the Great LakesRegion,” a web-based curriculum framework for middle school and high schoolteachers. In order to guide future development and improvement of the materials, Iadministered a written survey to 72 teachers and school administrators who attendeda series of teaching workshops on global and regional climate change in which I was aco-instructor. Teachers considered their greatest needs to be a conceptual frameworkof what to teach, and investigational activities on climate and climate change that areconnected to state and national standards, and that serve to enhance, rather thanreplace, existing curricula.

II. Introduction

Climate and climate change are increasingly taught, and increasingly consideredimportant topics in formal education and in outreach, “K to Gray.” However, until thepast decade, this was a topic only approached in undergraduate and graduatecourses. Where it was taught, the pedagogical approach to climate science was eitherindependently developed by skillful individual instructors, or taught from a handful ofexisting textbooks, where the content, the methods of teaching, and even theexercises used for evaluating student knowledge were strongly influenced by thechoice of text. In recent years, K-12 and informal outreach curricula and activities onclimate have proliferated. However, these have either been compendia ofindependent stand-alone resources or complete curricula developed exclusively fromexpert knowledge. In all cases, what to teach and how to teach it have been based onexpert guesses. To date, pedagogical approaches to teaching the basics about climateand climate change, especially outside of higher education, have not been consideredscientifically or systematically.

I approached this challenge by asking “how can teachers learn what students need toknow about climate change?” This question incorporates three distinct and novelquestions about teaching:

1. What are the important concepts that high school students must learn toadequately understand the basics of global climate change, its regional impacts,and potential measures for mitigation and adaptation?

2. What do teachers feel that they need in order to teach effectively about climatechange?

3. How do teachers’ prior experiences and preconceptions influence what theybelieve to be important?

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None of these questions has been addressed to date, and only the first—defining theconcepts required to establish “climate literary”—is beginning to emerge as a currentresearch topic, and then only at the global scale1,2. In order to approach these newquestions, I:

a . employed “Backward Design” techniques to identify the most importantconcepts;

b. partnered with a team of educators to connect these concepts with studentoutcomes, investigational activities, state standards, and additional content;

c. and then addressed teachers’ needs and preconceptions through surveys ofteachers who participated in courses and workshops I co-taught.

III. Approach

ContextWhile addressing broader questions, the internship was designed to meet a veryapplied need: to inform the structure and content of “Paradise Lost? Teaching AboutClimate Change in the Great Lakes Region,” a web-based curriculum framework formiddle school and high school teachers. Funded by a grant from the BaldwinWisconsin Idea Endowment, this resource was designed to complement the “ParadiseLost? Climate Change in the Northwoods” traveling art exhibit and communityeducation project, which began in 2006. The project brought together two graduatestudents in atmospheric and oceanic sciences, three high school teachers, and twoeducation outreach specialists to develop instructional materials on regional climatechange in the Upper Midwest, its potential impacts on human and natural systems,and conceptual and applied aspects of mitigation and adaptation. This teamproposed, a priori, that the best way to provide content knowledge to teachers was

• on the internet;

• in a “curriculum framework” format, rather than as a complete stand-alonecurriculum;

• by linking concepts with standards, activities, and videos of experts from theregion explaining the concepts and connecting concepts to their own work andstudent activities.

The educators in the team justified this kind of conceptual curriculum framework,rather than a complete “off-the-shelf” curriculum, because they claimed that mostteachers are very capable, they just need to know the concepts to teach and be givenuseful activities and materials to support these concepts.

As we developed these materials, preliminary results of a small survey of Vermont K-8teachers by the Association of American Geographers Climate Literacy Initiative“revealed that their primary interests revolved around curriculum development andenhancement; experimental learning for their students; innovative activities usingexisting Internet-based resources and professional development,”2 qualitativelysupporting our chosen approach.

After developing a draft version of this web curriculum framework, materials werepresented to teachers as part of four workshops:

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1. Natural Resources (NRES) 730 - Energy Education in the Classroom, a two-day, one-credit graduate course from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, January 5,2008 (Appendix A: Course Announcement Flyer).

2. a four-hour afternoon breakout session at the Wisconsin Society of ScienceTeachers (WSST) annual convention, March 13, 2008.

3. a two-hour all-district in-service workshop for high school science teachers fromthe Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD), April 16, 2008.

4. a three-hour workshop for teachers from Wisconsin, South Africa, and Taiwantaking part in the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Global EnvironmentalTeachings (GET) program, July 18, 2008.

Methods

1. What are the important concepts that high school students must learn to adequatelyunderstand global climate change, its regional impacts, and potential measures formitigation and adaptation?

In our first meetings, I convinced the team to approach the project with a “BackwardsDesign” philosophy3. I then independently identified the desired learning results: thethree most important concepts that would be enduring knowledge for all students.These concepts (available online at http://www.cbe.wisc.edu/paradiselost ), coverglobal climate change; regional climate impacts; and means of addressing theseproblems, respectively. For each concept, I identified a hierarchy of supportingconcepts and factual background necessary for understanding the greater idea, builton fundamental concepts that high school students might have been exposed to inprior coursework and would be able to grasp.

Criteria for student evidence of understanding were developed in conjunction withanother graduate student in Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Justin Bagley. Thisframework was then reviewed and approved by the project team and a panel ofAtmospheric and Oceanic Sciences faculty at UW-Madison. With these concepts anddesired student outcomes in place, the educators then led the collection,development, and sequencing of activities to promote active learning experiences.The wording, supporting details, and linked references for each concept were revisitedby the team monthly, incorporating feedback from educators who participated in theworkshops.

2. What do teachers feel that they need to know to teach effectively about climatechange and its regional impacts?

Teachers’ needs were identified through a written survey (Appendix D) patterned onthe Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG)4 and administered before eachtraining session. Teachers were asked to rank their needs from a range of sevenpotential teaching resources.

3. How do teachers’ preconceptions and prior knowledge influence what they believe tobe important?

Teachers’ preconceptions were identified through the written survey. Teachers wereasked to rank the importance of a list of concepts for developing a “big picture”understanding of the science of climate change, including non-intuitive concepts and

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erroneous “red herrings” that were, at best, tangentially related to climate change.They were also asked to list concepts that they had taught in the past, and sources ofprior exposure to each of these concepts were recorded.

Teachers were also asked to provide short answers to indicative questions on thecauses of atmospheric circulation, the difference between weather and climate, andtheir understanding of the ways by which humans affect the climate system. Shortanswer responses were binned by the same investigator using a recorded rubric(Appendix C).

Survey Instrument Design

I designed the survey independently and sought feedback from the project team andfrom peers in my research group. The project team settled on a written survey ratherthan the web-based SALG in order to ensure that workshop participants could fillthem out immediately upon arrival at the workshop site, by themselves, and withreceipt of a completed survey as a requirement for course credit to yield a highresponse rate.

Experimental Subjects: Expectation and Realization

I initially designed the survey to be administered to participants in the NRES 730course on 01/05/2008, and for any potential future offerings of the course. It wasexpected that the participants would be middle school and high school teachers andadministrators from Wisconsin. Within this target audience, my internship partnersand I wished to find a cross-section of teachers representing a range of ages and levelsof teaching experience, but we had no demographic expectations. It was moreimportant to the project to receive rapid responses from participants in the workshop,which could guide the evolution of the conceptual framework and materials, than itwas to carefully select representative cross-sections in order to definitely answertheoretical questions. However, mostly by chance, as interested parties requested thescheduling of additional workshops, the survey was eventually administered to ahighly diverse range of educators.

One major distinction among subjects was their interest in climate education.Participants in the NRES 730 and WSST workshops were teachers who had chosen toattend, and could be assumed to have self-selected based on their own interest.Participants in the compulsory MMSD and GET workshops did not choose to attendthese sessions, and therefore were not self-selected for interest in learning aboutclimate.

It should be noted that the workshops were never advertised as presenting aconceptual framework; for instance, the WSST announcement merely read “Learnclimate change science from a team of scientists and educators. Participate in activitieshighlighting current research on impacts and positive actions in our region.” As aresult, none of the participants expected that a conceptual framework format wouldbe presented at the time they filled out the survey before the workshops.

Analysis

Survey responses were analyzed to determine the impact of prior experience andexposure on perceived importance of concepts and perceived needs for effectiveinstruction. Statistical analysis was conducted in R5.

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IV. Results and Discussion

Respondents

Completed survey responses and experience levels summarized in Table 1. 72workshop participants responded to the survey, including 6 administrators and 66teachers (53 high school and 13 middle school) with an average of 12.4 years teachingscience, 6.2 years teaching about weather and climate, and 4.6 years teaching aboutclimate change. The majority respondents (77.87%) were local teachers whoparticipated in the NRES 730 and MMSD workshops. MMSD participants had the mostexperience teaching science in general, and climate and climate change in particular.Surprisingly for a group of teachers, only 44 of 72 respondents wrote their name onthe top of the survey as requested.

Table 1. Workshop Participation and Experience

Session nAverage Years

TeachingScience

Average YearsTeaching

Weather/Climate

Average Years Teaching

Climate ChangeNRES 730 31 10.7 4.9 3.7WSST 10 11.7 5.5 4.3MMSD 25 15.5 7.9 5.6GET 6 6.5 3.5 1.6Total 72 12.2 5.9 4.3

Teachers’ Reported Needs

The most important survey question from the perspective of my internship partnerswas question 6 (Appendix D: Survey Instrument): “What kinds of materials andresources do you feel that you need to begin teaching climate change, or to improveyour teaching? Please rank the following resources from 1 – Most Valuable to 7 – LeastValuable.” 60 of 72 respondents answered completely the question by ranking all 7options

I found that teachers overwhelming indicated a desire for a conceptual framework asthe most valuable resource for their teaching of climate change. The conceptualframework had the most number of responses as “most valuable,” the second numberof responses for “second most valuable,” the highest overall score, and the fewest“least valuable” responses of any of the resources offered (Table 2). A conceptualframework was followed by training on climate science and activities linked toconcepts and state standards as the resources with the highest perceived value.Surprisingly, a complete curriculum on climate change was not highlyranked—possibly because teachers do not have time in their annual schedules for anadditional “canned” curriculum. Results are consistent with those found by theAssociation of American Geographers Climate Literacy Initiative1: teachers would likeaccess to good activities and professional development for themselves. However, wefind that the additional choice of a conceptual framework, not present on that priorsurvey, is clearly preferred over these resources.

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Table 2. What do teachers feel that they need in order to teach effectively aboutclimate change? Ranking from 1 (most valuable) to 7 (least valuable).

Resource AverageRanking

Number of“Most

Valuable”Responses

(n = 60)

Rank ofTop 2

Responses

MostFrequentRanking

A complete curriculum onclimate change 4.41 10 4 7

A framework with theimportant concepts to teach 2.86 20 1 1

Activities linked to conceptsand state standards 3.14 6 3 2

Videos of regional expertsexplaining concepts 4.83 1 7 4, 5 (tie)

Interactive multimedia gamesand lessons 4.59 3 5 (tie) 6

Training for yourself on climatescience 3.43 15 2 1

References and climate data 4.64 5 5 (tie) 5

Misconceptions and Preconceptions

The reported need for a conceptual framework was reflected in teachers’ assessmentsof the importance of the given list of concepts in the teaching the science of climatechange. Most teachers considered every concept “critical” or “important” to studentunderstanding of climate change (Table 3). The average respondent correctly ranked3.26 of 9 concepts, and adequately ranked the importance of 5.94 concepts. Among 72respondents, none ranked the 9 concepts exactly as the project team had (seeAppendix B: Suggested Hierarchical Ranking of Concepts) only 1 selected a hierarchyof conceptual importance with a single completely erroneous answer; 7 respondentsadequately ranked 7 concepts; the vast majority, 51 adequately ranked 6 concepts;and 13 ranked only 5 of 9 concepts adequately.

Part of this problem was that teachers did not catch the “red herrings” (Table 3). Only11 (16%) correctly identified the stratospheric ozone hole as being tangential orunimportant to the big picture of climate change, while 15 (24%) identifiedatmospheric mercury as tangential/unimportant. By comparison, the most relevant ofthe tangential concepts I included, hurricanes, was rated so by 21 (33%) respondents.

Correlations in Prior Knowledge and Misconceptions

I found few correlations between prior knowledge and misconceptions. The 8 teacherswho correctly or adequately ranked 7 or 8 of the 9 concepts included 3 with one yearor less teaching experience, and only one of them had formal training in many of theclimate concepts. Only 14 of 7,225 possible correlations between answers across the

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respondents had r2 greater than 50% that were statistically-significant at the 95%significance level, and these were predominantly correlations between conceptualrankings. However, respondents’ ranking of the importance of Atmospheric Mercurywas correlated with prior training in climate change (r2=60%) and the global climatesystem (r2=57%).

Foundational knowledge of weather, climate, and climate change

Short answer responses were completed less faithfully than other sections. Results areshown in Appendix C: Binned Short Answer Responses. Despite the difficulties manyrespondents had in defining a conceptual hierarchy, most respondents had correct, ifnot complete, responses to the three short answer questions, indicating sufficientbackground for explaining the basic features of weather and climate to students.

Table 3. Number of responses ranking given concepts based on their importance to“the “big picture” understanding of the science of climate change that you wantstudents to develop in your classroom.”

Concept Critical ImportantImportant, but

too advanced forstudents

Tangentialor unimportant

Global carbon cycle 34 28 6 1

Stratospheric ozonehole 8 43 5 11

Impacts of climatechange onWisconsin

40 27 1 0

Atmosphericmercury 5 29 13 15

Greenhouse effect 48 20 0 0

Natural andanthropogeniccauses of climatechange

40 27 1 1

Ways to mitigate &

adapt to climate

change

37 27 2 3

Hurricanes 1 37 5 21

Impacts of climate

change on world

ecosystems

42 21 3 1

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Sources of Information and Teaching Experience

Teaching histories and sources of information on surveyed concepts are shown inTable 4. Most respondents claimed to have had some experience teaching theimportant concepts, but formal training was widespread only for the carbon cycle andgreenhouse effect. Few respondents had read the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange reports, and more relied on popular media than on the scientific literature forevery concept.

Table 4. Summary of teaching histories and sources of prior knowledge (n = 72)

Sources of Prior Knowledge

Concept PreviouslyTaught

Coursework& FormalTraining

IPCCReports

ScientificPapers

PopularMedia Other

Carbon cycle 53 41 7 13 20 10

Stratosphericozone hole 46 31 5 13 25 8

Impacts of climatechange onWisconsin

40 15 3 10 24 17

Atmosphericmercury pollution 26 12 2 9 18 8

Greenhouse effect 61 48 10 17 33 15

Natural &anthropogeniccauses of climatechange

48 27 13 17 31 13

Ways to mitigate &adapt to climatechange

47 17 6 11 33 12

Hurricanes 36 23 2 7 23 11

Impacts of climatechange on worldecosystems

44 23 8 18 31 11

V. Conclusions

Summary

In order to improve a web-based curriculum framework on climate change, I

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administered a written survey to 72 teachers and school administrators who attendeda series of teaching workshops on global and regional climate change in which I was aco-instructor. Most respondents had previously taught about some aspect of climateor climate change, and could describe the difference between weather and climate,the cause of the wind, and the basics of anthropogenic climate change in their ownwords. However, they had difficulty in hierarchically ranking climate concepts basedon their importance. Teachers reported that their greatest needs for improving theirteaching on climate were a conceptual framework, training for themselves, andactivities linked to concepts and state standards. Prior knowledge and misconceptionswere not strongly correlated.

Reflections

This internship confirmed the initial hypothesis of the “Paradise Lost?” project team:that a conceptual framework, augmented with activities and linked to educationalstandards, was the most effective format for a web resource on global climate changeand its regional impacts for high school teachers in Wisconsin. I was very surprised bythe clarity of the results.

Over the course of my internship, I have gained experience in survey design andqualitative data analysis. I have seen the practical value of using the web-based SALGover written surveys in order to minimize non-compliant responses and make for moredirect analysis. However, the greatest practical impact of this internship on my practiceof teaching and learning has been seeing how valuable the Backwards Design processwas to both the process of team-based curriculum design and in the finished product.I’m a believer now!

Through the internship, I have seen the great potential and few precedents for aresearch-based approach to improving teaching and outreach about climate, and Ihave learned that this work is an interesting and rewarding complement to mydisciplinary research in the atmospheric sciences. The Delta internship has confirmedand strengthened my commitment to taking a scholarly approach to teaching.

VI. References

1. Climate Literacy: Essential Principles And Fundamental Concepts. Available athttp://www.climate.noaa.gov/education/.

2. Dupigny-Giroux, L. L. (2007). Improving the climate literary of students, educatorsand the public - The Climate Literacy Initiative, EOS-Transactions of the AmericanGeophysical Union, Fall Meeting Special Insert, abstract #ED23C-03.

3. Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA:Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

4. Seymour, E., Wiese, D., Hunter, A., and Daffinrud, S.M. (2000). Creating a BetterMousetrap: On-line Student Assessment of their Learning Gains. Paper presentedat the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, San Francisco, CA. SALGsoftware at http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/salgains/instructor/.

5. R Development Core Team (2005). R: A language and environment for statisticalcomputing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, http://www.R-project.org.

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VII. Appendices

Appendix A: Course Announcement Flyer

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Appendix B: Suggested Hierarchical Ranking of Concepts (for Question 7)

Critical Important

Important, but

too advanced

for students

Tangential

or

unimportant

Global carbon cycle Correct Adequate Adequate Incorrect

Stratospheric ozone hole Incorrect Incorrect Adequate Correct

Impacts of climate change

on WisconsinCorrect Correct Correct Incorrect

Atmospheric mercury Incorrect Incorrect Adequate Correct

Greenhouse effect Correct Adequate Adequate Incorrect

Natural and anthropogenic

causes of climate changeCorrect Adequate Adequate Incorrect

Ways to mitigate & adapt

to climate changeAdequate Correct Adequate Incorrect

Hurricanes Incorrect Incorrect Adequate Correct

Impacts of climate change

on world ecosystemsAdequate Correct Adequate Incorrect

Appendix C: Binned Short Answer Responses

9. What makes the wind? Responses

• Coriolis effect/Earth’s spin on its axis 7

• Differences in pressure, movement from high to low pressure 37

• Insolation 9

• Differences in insolation 17

• Difference in temperature 14

• Orography 2

• Equatorial to poleward movement 2

• Partially correct answers related to secondary causes of wind e.g. jet stream,oceans, changes in density/vertical mixing, convection 19

• Nonphysical answer 2

• Incorrect answer e.g. particles 1

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10. What is the difference between weather and climate? Responses

• Daily/short term vs long term 38

• Instantaneous vs. average 20

• State/evolution vs statistical levels 20

• Local vs. regional/global 3

• Latitude or orography mentioned for climate 14

• Trend or change mentioned for climate 6

• Climatological time scales (30 years, 100 years, millennia) invoked 10

• Temperature/precipitation/humidity/wind mentioned as the variables forweather or climate 2

11. How do human activities influence the climate system? Responses

• Carbon dioxide/CO2 25

• Greenhouse gases 20

• Fossil fuels. hydrocarbons, and the activities that use them (e.g. industry,automobiles) 34

• Deforestation 17

• Change in albedo/reflectivity 6

• Greenhouse effect 19

• Overpopulation, overconsumption 9

• Stratospheric ozone hole 3

• Criteria air pollutants (e.g. NOx, SOx, troposheric ozone, particles) 6

• Carbon cycle changes 4

• Scientific but tangential: invasive species, run-off, loss of biodiversity, reducedoxygen, acid rain, consuming any resource" 9

• Respondent was overwhelmed 1

• Agriculture 2

• Nonscientific comment e.g. "we can change things for the better", "whateverthey want the graph to say" 5

• Secondary positive feedback in anthropogenic activities (e.g. Arctic drilling) 1

• Secondary feedback on hydrological cycle 3

• Respondent drew a diagram 2

• Respondent wrote an equation or drew a chart 1

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Pre-Workshop Survey

Paradise Lost? Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region

MMSD WorkshopApril 16, 2008

The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect information about your prior knowledge and

experience with climate concepts. Your responses will inform the development of the web

resource.

1. What grade level(s) do you currently teach? _____________________

2. How many years have you taught science? _____________________

3. How many years have you taught about weather and climate? _____________________

4. How many years have you taught about climate change? _____________________

5. Please identify how you have learned about the following subjects (check all that apply)

College

courses

Graduate

courses

Continuing

education

No

Formal

Training

Other (please describe)

Weather/meteorology

The global climate

system

Climate change

General chemistry

Atmospheric

chemistry

Differential equations

6. What kinds of materials and resources do you feel that you need to begin teaching climate

change, or to improve your teaching? Please rank the following resources from 1 – Most

Valuable to 7 – Least Valuable.

______ A complete curriculum on climate change

______ A framework with the important concepts to teach

______ Activities linked to concepts and state standards

______ Videos of regional experts explaining concepts

______ Interactive multimedia games and lessons

______ Training for yourself on climate science

______ References and climate data

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7. Please rank the importance of the following concepts to the “big picture” understanding of the

science of climate change that you want students to develop in your classroom.

Critical Important

Important, but

too advanced

for students

Tangential

or unimportant

Global carbon cycle

Stratospheric ozone hole

Impacts of climate change

on Wisconsin

Atmospheric mercury

Greenhouse effect

Natural and anthropogenic

causes of climate change

Ways to mitigate & adapt

to climate change

Hurricanes

Impacts of climate change

on world ecosystems

8. Please indicate whether or not you have taught these concepts in the past, and how you

learned about them (check all that apply).

Do you have Prior Knowledge of these concepts

from any of the following sources?Have you

ever taught

this

concept?Coursework

& Formal

Training

IPCC

Reports

Scientific

papers

Popular

mediaOther

Carbon cycle Y / N

Stratospheric ozone

holeY / N

Impacts of climate

change on WisconsinY / N

Atmospheric

mercury pollutionY / N

Greenhouse effect Y / N

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Do you have Prior Knowledge of these concepts

from any of the following sources?Have you

ever taught

this

concept?Coursework

& Formal

Training

IPCC

Reports

Scientific

papers

Popular

mediaOther

Natural &

anthropogenic

causes of climate

change

Y / N

Ways to mitigate &

adapt to climate

change

Y / N

Hurricanes Y / N

Impacts of climate

change on world

ecosystems

Y / N

9. What makes the wind?

10. What is the difference between weather and climate?

11. How do human activities influence the climate system?

Focus on what you consider the important processes, and explain how they work. Feel free to use

pictures!

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Excerpts from my Teaching-as-Research Log: on the BasicClimate Change Talk

Biology/Zoology 220: Biology and Society, 04/13/2006

Jim reminded me to ask questions of students in their small groups and allow time forbrief discussion, rather than “who [which individual has an answer]?” because it allowseveryone to engage the question.

Initial “Paradise Lost?” Retreat, 05/01/2006

Rachael filmed my talk. Good eye contact and interaction with the audience, but Ineed more even pacing. A few too many “ums” and “ahs.” I looked a bit uncomfortableand overly cautious in my choice of wording. I ran over the allotted time, in partbecause I allowed unlimited questions during the talk. The artists respondedbeautifully to my suggestions for visualizing carbon emissions and the “discuss for 2minutes with your neighbor” challenges from John Sterman’s Cloudy Skies. Lots offollow-up questions and thanks over lunch and dinner.

Practice “Microteaching” in The College Classroom ( InterL&S 875), 09/20/2006

In-class “microteaching” demonstrated that the lesson concept was effective, and theassessment found that all students/peers left convinced that increases in atmosphericCO2 are due to human activities. Review of the videotape revealed more about myteaching style than about the lesson contents. The tape reminds me to

• Face the students while speaking, not the board;

• Speak more with changes in intonation, less with my hands;

• Avoid trivia and digressions, especially in a 10-minute talk.

Biology/Zoology 220: Biology and Society, 09/21/2006

About a third of the class checked out during the slides, but everyone was engagedduring the activities. A student requested that I give the same talk to her studentenvironmental group.

Big Red Go Green Student Training, 10/05/2006

After three assessment cycles in three weeks, I have improved the pacing, made itmore immediately engaging, and found it to be an effective lesson.

On 10/4, the presenter in a seminar on interdisciplinarity in environmental studiesbegan by asking attendees to write on an index card a response to the question “whena seed grows into a plant, where does it get its [dry] mass?” Ecologists in attendancedidn’t give complete answers, and I noted that how the question was phrased made itappear a matter of recalling trivia, rather than engaging a concept. This experiencecaused me to change the introduction to focus on how plants eat and begin thelesson by framing the process of photosynthesis as a carbon uptake activity, makingclear a connection that even experts had trouble establishing on their own.

After compressing the lesson into 10 minutes for “micro-teaching” and then allowingit to extend to as long as needed in two instances, a major change has been to

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increase the target time to 20-25 minutes (15 for outreach). Student writing time alonerequires 5 minutes.

Biology/Zoology 220: Biology and Society, 02/06/2007

The addition of recent Wisconsin data from the State Climatologist’s office went overwell, and got a lot of interest and enthusiasm from non-science majors. The “history ofbioclimatology” that worked so well in AOS 900 was a bit beyond the audience, anddidn’t add to the presentation.

Environmental Studies 461: Environmental Systems, 03/28/2007

It was rainy and dark, and the students were low on energy. Jon said that I was moremonotone and less animated than they were used to, but thought the content wasright for an introduction to climate and climate change. Suggested the Alan Robock“nuclear winter vs. anthropogenic climate change” slides could be confusing anddepressing. Keynote sure is prettier than PowerPoint.

UWSP NRES 730 Workshop, 01/05/2008

The teachers <<loved>> the Wisconsin data and the GISS TEMP animation. I feltconfident about how I presented the material, but the probability distribution andnighttime temperature discussions clearly lost a few people. Many requests for slides.

“Paradise Lost?” Gallery Opening, Olbrich Gardens, Madison, 01/12/2008

The biggest audience I’ve ever spoken before. An actual crowd. I felt great about thecontent and my presentation. Rachael said I looked nervous and was hesitant, but Ireceived positive comments from audience members and educators about myenthusiasm and presentation style. Both were correct. The least depressing film ofmyself teaching so far.

WSST Workshop, 03/13/2008

I stayed up late last night doing research and barely made it to Lake Geneva on time.The presentation was on autopilot and well-received; I have this talk down wellenough that I can do it under adverse conditions.

Mount Horeb High School Environmental Science Class, 04/08/2008

Raining hard, but only one student fell asleep. I was energized, more talkative, morewilling to speak in slang, and just more comfortable in my skin speaking to high schoolstudents…it seemed that a lot of them actually cared.

Edgewood College, 04/14/2008

Wow! A small group of liberal arts students is way different than 30 UW non-sciencemajors. Again, I felt more confident and just a better presenter and public speaker infront of students than I have before their teachers. Good questions, great response tothe activities.

MMSD Workshop, 04/16/2008

The best presentation yet? I need snappier answers about ice core dating techniques.

UWSP GET Workshop, 07/18/2008Question from a South African teacher about my technique: you don’t give the answerto students in the slides, so why do I do so for teachers? Is it possible to do the “crashcourse” exclusively as an investigational activity?

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Testimonials & Letters of RecognitionWithout extensive formal classroom teaching experience or a Teaching Assistantshipappointment or during my graduate career, I had limited opportunities to evaluate andimprove my teaching based on student comments in structured formats. Instead, much ofthe feedback I have received on my teaching has been though ad-hoc comments fromstudents and educators who have appreciated my efforts and consistently asked for more.This cascade of teaching opportunities has been a definitive element of my experience as agraduate student and participant in Delta.

This is where it all began:

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Many of the teachers who attended the graduate courses and workshops I led requestedthe slides and videos I presented for their own use . Five of them requested that I visit theirclassrooms.

From: Beth Hamelink <[email protected]>Date: April 9, 2008Subject: Re: Atmosphere and climate change

Thanks again Scott for coming to speak with my Environmental Science class. Youreaffirmed some important pieces of information for them and the Wisconsininformation was great.

I hope I can keep you and your colleagues on my contact list for future years.

Thanks,Beth HamelinkMt. Horeb High School

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Guest lecturing in Biology/Zoology 220: Biology and Society, a course for non-sciencemajors, has been one of the few opportunities I have had to teach undergrads in atraditional classroom context, and to iterate on the same set of lessons and activities overthe course of seven semesters. As a guest lecturer only once or twice a semester, there werefew opportunities to obtain meaningful evaluation from the students on my teaching. So Itook it as a good sign when students began asking me to give the same lessons to theirfriends, sorority sisters, and classmates…outside of class…and people actually showed up.The following email was the first of those unsolicited data points.

From: Maggie Kate King <[email protected]>Date: September 26, 2006Subject: global warming presentation

Hi Scott,

I saw your presentation in my Zoology 220 class last Thursday, and I asked youafterwards about your availability to present a similar presentation for studentorganizations.

I am the coordinator for a student org on campus known as Big Red Go Green, whichfocuses on educating the campus community and influencing UW administrations tomake the campus more environmentally friendly. Last semester, we helped begin UW-Madison's "We Conserve" campaign.

This semester, we have many new interns, and many are seeking a quick course onglobal warming before they educate other students. I believe your presentation thatyou gave during Zoo 220 was perfect.

When would you be available to give a similar presentation (30-40 minutes long) to agroup of 20-30 students from Big Red Go Green? We meet regularly on Thursdays at 7in Grainger hall, but we could set up another time for this presentation if that is betterfor you.

I hope to hear back from you soon, as I really enjoyed your presentation and amexcited that you might be able to help out Big Red Go Green.

Thanks so much,

Maggie KingBig Red Go Green Coordinator

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CURRICULUM VITAE

SCOTT N. SPAKCenter for Sustainability and the Global Environment Phone: (608) 265-8720University of Wisconsin-Madison Fax: (608) 265-41131710 University Avenue, Room 207 email: [email protected], WI 53726

EducationUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison

Dissertator in Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences

Madison, WI

2003 - 2008

PhD. expected September 2008.

George W. Bunn Wisconsin Distinguished Fellow, 2004-2005

Graduate certificate programs: Energy Analysis & Policy, Air Resources Management, Delta Certificate in Research, Teaching & Learning

Dartmouth College

A.B. in Engineering Sciences, Environmental Science minor

National Merit Scholar, 1996

Hanover, NH

June 2000

Professional ExperienceCenter for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE)

Graduate Research Assistant

Madison, WI

2003 - 2008

Thesis Title: “Characterizing Local and Regional Aerosol Processes in the Great Lakes Region”

Advisor: Tracey Holloway

Modeled regional pollution chemistry and transport using the Community Multiscale Air QualityModel in support of an interdisciplinary investigation, “Projecting the Impact of Land Use andTransportation on Future Air Quality in the Upper Midwestern United States” (EPA STAR grantR831840)

Mitchell Madison Group/Zeborg, Inc.Analyst/Senior Analyst

New York, NY2000 – 2003

• Applied numerical modeling and data mining to procurement and corporate finance insupport of client corporate reengineering projects

• Performed all invoicing, budgeting, staffing and proposal creation functions for a $40MM/yearconsulting and enterprise software engagement

• Designed and led development of a web-based financial and operational metrics tracking toolfor a Fortune 100 financial services firm

Savvy Works, Ltd.Science and Policy Analyst

Chicago, ILPart Time, 1997 – Present

Wrote/edited 26 training, occupational safety and environmental technology films and CD-ROMs forDOE, EPA, DOL, labor unions and private clients

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MacLean-Fogg CompanyEngineering Intern

Mundelein, ILSpring 1999

Coordinated materials testing and product development for a locking thread industrial fastener

PublicationsS.N. Spak , T. Holloway, B. Lynn, R. Goldberg (2007). A Comparison of Statistical and Dynamical

Downscaling for Surface Temperature in North America. Journal of Geophysical Research–Atmospheres, 112, D08101, doi:10.1029/2005JD006712.

B. Stone, A. Mednick, T. Holloway, S.N. Spak (2007). Is Compact Growth Good For Air Quality? Journal ofthe American Planning Association, 73:4, 404-418. doi: 10.1080/01944360708978521.

T. Holloway, T. Sakurai, Z. Han, S. Ehlers, S.N. Spak , L.W. Horowitz, G.R. Carmichael, D. Streets, Y.Hozumi, H. Ueda, S.U. Park, C. Fung, M. Kajino, N. Thongboonchoo, M. Engardt, C. Bennet, H.Hayami, K. Sartelet, Z. Wang, K. Matsuda, M. Amann (2008). Impact of Global Emissions onRegional Air Quality in Asia. A t m o s p h e r i c E n v i r o n m e n t, 42, 3543–3561,doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2007.10.022.

T. Holloway, S.N. Spak , D.J. Barker, M.P. Bretl, K. Hayhoe, J. Van Dorn, D. Wuebbles (2008). Change inOzone Air Pollution over Chicago associated with Global Climate Change (Journal ofGeophysical Research – Atmospheres, in press), doi:10.1029/2007JD009775.

S.N. Spak and T. Holloway. Seasonality of Speciated Aerosol Transport over the Great Lakes Region(Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, in review).

S.N. Spak , T. Holloway, B. Stone, A. Mednick. Influences of the Great Lakes on Chemical Transport in theMidwestern United States (Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, submitted).

B. Stone, A. Mednick, T. Holloway, S.N. Spak . Climate Change Mitigation through Smart GrowthDevelopment and Vehicle Fleet Hybridization (in preparation for Environmental Science &Technology).

H.L. Woods, T. Holloway, S.N. Spak , D.J. Barker. The Contribution of Regional Meteorology toParticulate Matter Variability in the Upper Midwestern United States (in preparation forEnvironmental Research Letters).

Selected Presentations & WorkshopsS.N. Spak , T. Holloway, A. Mednick, B. Stone (2007). Evaluation of Bottom-Up Mobile Emissions

Inventories in the Upper Midwest. Eos Trans. AGU, 88(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract A23C-1479.

S.N. Spak and T. Holloway (2007). A Regional Aerosol Modeling Perspective on Global Models.Presentation to the 3rd GEOS-Chem User Meeting, Cambridge, MA, 11-13 April 2007.

S.N. Spak and T. Holloway (2006). Seasonality of Black Carbon over the Great Lakes. Eos Trans. AGU,87(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract A43A-0124.

S.N. Spak and T. Holloway (2006). An Evaluation of Primary Aerosol Transport in the Great LakesRegion. Presentation to the 5th annual CMAS Conference, Research Triangle Park, NC, 16 October2006.

2006 Energy Symposium: Consider the Alternatives - Options for Energy Production from Non-CarbonEmitting Sources. Madison, WI, 8-9 May 2006.

Air Pollution as a Climate Forcing: 2nd Workshop. Honolulu, HI, 4-7 April 2005.

T. Holloway and S.N. Spak (2004). A Reduced Form Model for Assessing Future Climate and Air Quality.Eos Trans. AGU, 85(47), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract A52A-05.

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T. Holloway, J. Bachan, S.N. Spak (2004). Performance of CMAQ on a Mac OS X System. Presentation tothe 3rd annual CMAS Conference, Research Triangle Park, NC, 19 October 2004.

NCAR Climate and Health Summer Colloquium. Boulder, CO, 21-28 July 2004.

American Meteorological Society Summer Policy Colloquium. Washington, DC, 6-15 June 2004.

Modeling of Global Chemistry for Climate: Process Studies of Atmospheric Dynamics and Chemistry byComparison of Models and Measurements. Banff, AB, 22-28 May 2004.

Energy Center of Wisconsin Energy & Environmental Policy Forum. Madison, WI, 13 November 2003.

Modeling of Global Chemistry for Climate: Global Chemistry and Climate of the Troposphere andLower Stratosphere. Montreal, QC, 7-13 August 2003.

Teaching, Outreach & Professional ServiceScience Advisor and Evaluation Coordinator, “Paradise Lost? Artists on Climate Change in theNorthwoods,” Art Exhibition and Community Education Project, 2006 – Present

Co-Developer, K-12 Energy Education Program Teacher Training on Climate Change, 2007 – Present

• Employed Backward Design principles to develop a conceptual framework on global climatechange, impacts on the Great Lakes region, mitigation and adaptation for grades 7-12

• Collaborated with educators to link concepts with student outcomes, classroom activities,state and federal educational standards, and interactive content as a web resource

• Assessed “How can teachers learn what students need to know about climate change?” as aDelta internship project in teaching-as-research

• Instructor for two one-credit graduate courses through the University of Wisconsin-StevensPoint, and workshops for the Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers 2008 Convention,Madison Metropolitan School District, and the UWSP Global Environmental TeachingsProgram, 01/08 – 07/08.

Invited Lecturer, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences 535: Atmospheric Dispersion and Air Pollution,“Air Pollution: An Overview,” 2/06

• Biology/Zoology 220: Biology and Society, “Using Science to Understand Global Change,”4/05, 11/05, 12/05, 4/06, 9/06, 2/07

• College of Engineering Teaching Improvement Program and New Educator Orientation,“Teaching as Research: A Systematic Way to Improve Student Learning“, 1/08

• Environmental Studies 539: Air Resources Science and Policy, “A History of Air Pollution:Species, Sources, and Regulations,” 11/06

• Environmental Studies 461: Environmental Systems, “Changes in the Climate System,” 3/07

• Environmental Studies 761: Air Resources Colloquium, “The Clean Air Act,” 2/07

Reviewer for Environmental Pollution, Environmental Science & Technology, Geophysical Research Letters,and Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres

Student Representative for Energy Analysis & Policy, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies,University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004 – 2008

Dartmouth College Alumni Admissions Interviewer, 2002 – Present