The effects of a marine and coastal resource education project on urban science teachers’ curricula, pedagogical practices, and ‘ sense of place’

Abstract

A marine and coastal resource education project for secondary science teachers, Marine Life, was developed for a cohort of pre-certified, in-service secondary science teachers. The project had five overarching goals: (1) to increase teacher knowledge of the biodiversity and marine environments that occur throughout the New York City region; (2) to increase teacher use of local coastal and marine examples when teaching required components of the secondary science curriculum (e.g., the NYS Living Environment); (3) to assess the impact of Marine Life on the percentage of teachers who introduce their secondary students to coastal habitats; and (4) to determine how learning about local natural history and marine biology affected teachers' cognitive conceptualizations of the city and their sense of place. Nineteen pre-certified secondary science teachers participated in the 13-week intervention. This cohort consisted largely of teaching fellows originally from outside of NYC. Pre-and post-course instruments, along with transcribed oral interviews, were employed to assess program goals. On the pre-course instrument 100% of teachers self-reported having limited knowledge of the marine resources of New York City and 61% self-reported having no knowledge of this topic at all. Pre/post intervention analyses indicated that (1) teacher self-reported knowledge and measured knowledge of the biology, ecology, and geology of the marine resources of the NYC region increased significantly; (2) teachers' planned use of local coastal and marine resource examples in their classroom curricula increased significantly; and (3) the percentage of teachers who intended to make use of the field increased significantly. Sense of place also emerged as a component of planned pedagogical change; several teachers thought that students needed to be better connected with their local environment. Constraints imparted by the NY Regents test, the lack of marine biology in the Living Environment curriculum, the difficulty of accessing the field, and student unfamiliarity with marine biodiversity were reported as explanations for why teachers would not change their curricula and pedagogy.