Educating the Educators on Earth and Space Science

With the continuing support of the Petroleum Professional Development Center of Midland College and the AAPG Foundation, the Earth and Space Science for Teachers class was offered again during 2022-23 – a 15-week online course designed to help bring excellent foundational Earth science content knowledge, teaching resource and resource exploration skills to geo- and environmental science educators.

This year’s class ran from October 2022 through March 2023, and the attending teachers were able to participate thanks to scholarships provided by both the AAPG Foundation and the PPDC, which also garnered support for materials including books, rock and mineral kits and fossil kits.

The Foundation’s support for the course meets its mission to support educational opportunities for K-12 teachers and to support teachers in bringing more geology-related topics to the classroom.

Teaching the Teachers

At the course’s beginning, we asked the teachers to take a competency self-assessment and a 60-question pre-course test of their understanding of Earth science content concepts; both were then repeated at the end of course. The test covered the course’s major concepts and encompassed all the Next Generation Science Standards and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards for high school Earth and space science.

The results of the initial tests:

• The average pre-course test score for the high school ESS teachers was 70.
• The average pre-course test score for the high school science teachers (non-ESS) was 64.
• For middle school science teachers, the average pre-course test score was 67.
• The solitary elementary school teacher scored a 44 on the pre-test.

There clearly was room for improvement – which is why we were so excited by the final results:

• The average final test score for the high school ESS teachers was 94 – a 34-percent increase.
• The average final score for the high school science teachers (non-ESS) was 94 – a 47-percent increase.
• For middle school science teachers, the average post-course test score was 90 – a 34-percent increase.
• The elementary teacher’s post-test score was 96 – a 118-percent increase.

Data Dive

At both the beginning and end of the course we also applied a 10-question survey to gauge their own assessment of their level of understanding and ability to teach foundational ESS concepts. Teachers were presented with a concept statement and asked to select whether or not they:

• Had ever heard of the concept
• Had heard of the concept but needed to learn more to be able to teach it
• Could teach it in their classroom
• Could teach the concept and also help other teachers to teach the concept

The pre- and post-course assessments showed impressive changes in the teachers’ growth in confidence and competency. Specifically:

• Before, almost 85 percent expressed concerns about their ability to teach about the Earth system interactions; after, all felt competent and the number who felt they could help other teachers increased from zero percent to 42 percent.
• Before, over 85 percent expressed concerns about their ability to teach about the basic climate zone classification concepts; after, all felt competent and one-half felt they could help other teachers.
• Before, one-quarter expressed concerns about their ability to teach about plate tectonic concepts; after, all felt competent and the number who felt they could help other teachers increased from 25 percent to 56 percent.

Obviously, the better prepared and more enthusiastic middle and high school Earth science and environmental science teachers there are in our classrooms, the more potential majors we will see in our geoscience departments.