Member Highlight: SERC InTeGrate

InTeGrate is funded by a 5-year STEP Center grant from the National Science Foundation. The program supports the teaching of geoscience in the context of societal issues both within geoscience courses and across the undergraduate curriculum. Our goal is to develop a citizenry and workforce that can address environmental and resource issues facing our society.

The first goal of the InTeGrate project is to develop curricula that will dramatically increase Earth literacy of all undergraduate students. This includes the large majority of students that do not major in the geosciences, those who are historically under-represented in the geosciences, and future K-12 teachers, such that they are better positioned to make sustainable decisions in their lives and as part of the broader society.

The second major goal is to increase the number of majors in the geosciences and related fields who are able to work with other scientists, social scientists, business people, and policy makers to develop viable solutions to current and future environmental and resource challenges.

Achieving these goals requires a revolution in how geo-education is perceived and practiced, as well as the roles that learning about the Earth play in the broader curriculum in institutions of higher education. Connecting geoscience education to societal challenges has the potential to increase enrollment in geoscience and allied courses, thus strengthening the field while serving society.

To start this revolution, an integrated, community-based approach combines the following elements:

• Developing teaching materials and evaluation of new teaching resources and instructional strategies,
• Implementation programs to incorporate teaching about the Earth throughout the undergraduate curriculum,
• Professional development and dissemination strategies to promote widespread adoption of these new approaches.
• Assessment and Project Evaluation ensure that the materials and programs developed by the program effectively meet their stated goals and objects, and that project activities in aggregate meet the overarching goals of the project.

Link: http://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/index.html
Type: III
Joined: 2007
Voting Rep: Cathy Manduca