From safety to nutrition, food policy researchers work to improve what we eat. They examine evidence found by experts in food science, consumer behavior, taste perception, nutrition, and many other related fields. Using this information, these scientists help the food industry, government, and public improve the quality, safety, and sustainability of our cuisine. At the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), food policy researcher Caitlin Boon convenes expert panels to advise Congress, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the wider public on major science and health issues. Combining a love of public policy with a passion for science, she helps consumers and policy makers make healthy dietary choices.
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There are many compelling reasons to include environmental education (EE) in our science classes. Environmental issues are interdisciplinary—facilitating their inclusion in both physical and life science. They are also complex, providing students with the opportunity to investigate multivariable systems and appreciate the “messy” world of real science. Modern technology allows students to access authentic environmental data sets from multiple sources—many in real time—and design inquiry experiments and collect their own data. As this issue of The Science Teacher suggests, creating greener chemistry laboratories and including environmental topics in all courses are a good start.
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Can eating less meat really help the environment?
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How can students engage in authentic inquiry on global climate change if they are not able to do the actual experiments? Many questions about climate change emerge over large areas and long periods of time. The good news is that much of the data from these experiments is available for free online. Students can use this data to answer their inquiry questions and compare their results to those of the scientific community. This article suggests some online resources that will engage your students in true inquiry about the science of climate change—without the added expense of traveling to Antarctica!
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For reliable information on the environment, students and teachers can turn to the Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE). Based at Boston University (BU) and operated in partnership with the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), the EoE is a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts. However—unlike Wikipedia—all EoE articles are written by recognized field experts and are reviewed and approved by qualified topic editors. This article describes how the EoE can be useful to teachers and their students in a variety of ways.
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Teaching with movie clips is one strategy to increase student understanding of environmental science. Whether accurate or not, “movie science” can expose students to phenomena that are difficult to explore in the typical classroom. In addition, adding movie segments to your curriculum not only increases student interest and enjoyment of environmental science, but also demonstrates that science is not limited to the school laboratory. As students interact with mainstream media, they develop as both critical viewers and critical thinkers.
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This article features two engaging high school activities that include current scientific information, data, and authentic case studies. The activities address the physical, biological, and chemical processes that are associated with oxygen-depleted areas, or “dead zones,” in aquatic systems. Students can explore these dead zones through both hands-on investigations and interdisciplinary critical-thinking exercises.
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Environmental education “is a process that aims to develop an environmentally literate citizenry” (NAAEE 2004). It is an effective way to engage students of all levels and has improved learning outcomes and achievement in science and other subjects (Lieberman and Hoody 1998). Worldwide, students report that schools are a key place for learning about environmental issues (PISA 2009). This article describes a field ecology course that was designed to engage all students in exploring environmental issues.
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The National Science Teachers Association’s (NSTA) Science Safety Advisory Board recently launched the Safety in the Science Classroom portal. This portal serves as a gateway to safety resources for teachers, supervisors, and administrators. It also contains an evolving list of safety resources for elementary, middle, and high schools. The list includes professional societies, federal and state agencies, nonprofit and for-profit companies, and science supply houses that provide safety services and products for K–12 schools. This month's column identifies some of the resources high school science educators can expect to find on this list.
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Science education blogs can serve as powerful digital lab notebooks that contain text, images, and videos. Each blog entry documents a moment in time, but becomes interactive with the addition of readers' comments. Blogs can provide a realistic experience of the peer-review process and generate evolving descriptions of observations through time. This month's column describes some steps to consider prior to starting a classroom blog.
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No, your students will not be drinking green root beer for St. Patrick’s Day—this “green” root beer laboratory promotes environmental awareness in the science classroom, and provides a venue for some very sound science content! While many science classrooms incorporate root beer–brewing activities, the root beer lab presented in this article has an added environmental benefit: It uses local ingredients and recycled products. This lab also encourages student inquiry into a multitude of interdisciplinary topics—and your students will enjoy sampling the results of their scientific endeavors.
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The Ocean, Reefs, Aquariums, Literacy, and Stewardship (CORALS) research program helps students connect global environmental issues to local concerns and personal choices. During the 18-week program, students strengthen their understanding of coral reef decline through a classroom aquarium activity, communicate with science experts, and create digital videos about the process. This combination of activities helps students build the motivation and ability to manage environmental needs and contribute to sustainable development.
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This issue’s theme—“Going Green”—relates to environmental education. In an article published in the Journal of Science Teacher Education, Dickerson and colleagues (2007) discuss issues related to the lack of groundwater education in school science classes. However, as we see aquifers dry up and subsurface waters polluted by urban and rural runoff, the importance of incorporating groundwater as a topic of environmental education becomes obvious. This month's column offers a few strategies to incorporate this important environmental issue into the curriculum.
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Geospatial technologies have emerged over the last 15 years as one of the key tools used by environmental scientists (NRC 2006). In fact, educators have recognized that coupling geospatial technologies with environmental science topics and scientific data sets opens the door to local and regional scientific investigations (McInerney 2006). In this article, the authors describe the use of geographic information system (GIS) technologies and computer modeling to engage students in determining the economic and ecological value of trees in their neighborhoods while participating in the Urban Tree Project.
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