Biology Scholars Program -- Research Residency Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Institute July 14-17, 2010 Washington, DC Alison Wallace Minnesota State University Moorhead

Background “How can I help my students become more ecologically literate?” What is ecological literacy? – Environmental literacy  ecological literacy? – “Ecological thinking” (Berkowitz 2007) – 1) knowledge of the principles of ecology, 2) systems thinking, 3) ecological values (Fritjof Capra) – Incorporate concepts of sustainability and ec ological world view How can we get our biology students to think on a more complex level and make these connections? – Just learning the science is not enough. – We do not have time to learn the details about each environmental issue out there.

The CAB-WTL Model Balgopal, Dahlberg, and Wallace Cognitive Domain Affective Domain Behavioral Domain authentic WTL = writing to learn Identify and resolve misconceptions Address affective and behavioral, as well as, cognitive domains Develop metacognitive skills Use evidence to support claims Employ higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy (analysis, synthesis, evaluation)

Research question Because the three essays served as the intervention as well as the assessment, we need additional forms of assessment! We also need to know how transferable ecological thinking can be from one issue to another. Will our class time spent writing essays on one issue be “worth it”? **Does employing the CAB-WTL model for one environmental issue enable students to transfer their ecological thinking skills to novel issues?**

Research design One intro biology class (n=24) Three environmental issues: A, B, C – Underlying ecological concepts: A=B; A≠C 1)Pre intervention: introduce basic ecological concepts 2)Pre test: MC, scenario-based (A) 3)Intervention: Three in-class essays on issue A 4)Post test: MC, scenario-based (A, B, C) 5)Transfer (related): One in-class essay on issue B 6)Transfer (not related): One in-class essay on issue C