Student Projects and Presentations
The lab exercises you have been doing
this semester were developed as
part of
the Boston College Educational Seismology Project (BC-ESP). The BC-ESP
brings inquiry-based learning to students of a wide range of ages
through investigation of earthquakes recorded by seismographs in K-12
and college classrooms.
Seismology offers opportunities for teaching students about the nature
of
scientific inquiry and many important scientific concepts. Our
educational seismic network currently consists of seismographs located
in K-12 schools, as well as at the Boston College campus and at Weston
Observatory (a research laboratory of the Boston College Department of
Geology and Geophysics).
Having their own seismograph in the
classroom gives students a way of
collecting real-world data and making measurements that provide them
with an understanding of the internal structure of the Earth and
processes by which the Earth changes. The exercises associated with
these in-class seismographs are intended to teach students not only
about seismology and earthquakes, but also about plate tectonics,
earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building, as well as about how the
forces of nature shape the Earth’s surface. Furthermore, our BC-ESP
curriculum also teaches students about various aspects of physics, such
as energy, mechanics, and waves, and encourages a culture of scientific
inquiry in K-12 schools
We are asking for your input on how
well these exercises work, and how
to best use these exercises to encourage a culture of scientific
inquiry in K-12 and college classrooms. Thus, as a semester project for
this course, we are asking you to give a presentation at the end of the
semester on
one of the following:
(1) Choose one of the lab exercises
we did this semester, and describe
aspects of the lab that worked well for teaching science, as well as
what did not work so well and how you could improve the lab.
or
(2) Describe an additional lab that
you think would be worth doing for
this course. This can either be something that you developed yourself,
or something that has already been developed by someone else that you
think would work for this course. If you use something that was
developed by someone else (such as something you found in a lab book or
on the Internet) make sure that you reference it and give proper credit
as to where it came from.