The Middle Grades Earth and Space Science Education Partnership
The Middle Grades Earth and Space Science Education partnership involves faculty members from Geosciences, Astronomy and Education, and targets ESS in grades 4 through 9. Teacher professional development activities concentrate on building deep conceptual understanding of big ideas in ESS in four topic areas: energy production, climate change, plate tectonics, and solar system astronomy.The goals of the partnership are to: 1) contribute to the understanding of conceptual development in ESS through the middle grades, 2) develop and support current teachers across Pennsylvania to engage students with the significant and complex questions of ESS fields, 3) strengthen the science content preparation of pre-service teachers to deepen their understanding of ESS, and 4) institutionalize improved communication and collaboration in teaching and learning among colleges and campuses of Penn State, in underserved urban and rural school districts, and across the partnership.
Showcase
Our project seeks to improve the quality of instruction and student learning in Earth and Space science (ESS). Our approach involves professional development that tightly integrates formative assessment, curriculum development…
Library
To improve the quality of instruction and student learning in Earth and Space science we must have professional development that tightly integrates assessment (broadly construed), curriculum development and pedagogical improvement.…

