Matthew J Oliver - US grants

The application of innovative ocean observing and animal telemetry technology over Palmer Deep (Western Antarctic Peninsula; WAP) is leading to new understanding, and also to many new questions related to polar ecosystem processes and their control by bio-physical interactions in the polar environment. This multi-platform field study will investigate the impact of coastal physical processes (e.g. tides, currents, upwelling events, sea-ice) on Adélie penguin foraging ecology in the vicinity of Palmer Deep, off Anvers Island, WAP. Guided by real-time surface convergence and divergences based on remotely sensed surface current maps derived from a coastal network of High Frequency Radars (HFRs), a multidisciplinary research team will adaptively sample the distribution of phytoplankton and zooplankton, which influence Adélie penguin foraging ecology, to understand how local oceanographic processes structure the ecosystem.

Core educational objectives of this proposal are to increase awareness and
understanding of (i) global climate change, (ii) the unique WAP ecosystem, (iii) innovative methods and technologies used by the researchers, and (iv) careers in ocean sciences, through interactive interviews with scientists, students, and technicians, during the field work. These activities will be directed towards instructional programming for K-16 students and their teachers. Researchers and educators will conduct formative and summative evaluation to improve the educational program and measure its impacts respectively.

This award supports efforts to leverage the extensive National Science Foundation investment in polar sciences, polar infrastructure, and science education research and development to promote an informed citizenry and the next generation of polar scientists. It responds to the objectives outlined in DCL 15-114.

The University of Delaware (UD), will convert the Spring offering of an existing large-enrollment, non-major environmental science course into a course that is polar-focused, student-centered and employs a data-intensive active-learning pedagogy. The Fall offering of this course will continue to be a traditional lecture course. In the Spring course offering, students will work directly with polar data in an introductory R-based programing framework and use these data to evaluate media claims about polar regions. Students will also experience the human dimension of polar research through interactions with a range of polar scientists. Over the course of the project, ~170 non-major students will be immersed in polar science through this data-driven course. The impact of this project will extend well beyond the award period through continued offerings at UD and through development of at least twenty data visualizations and three Problem-Based-Learning (PBL) problems. The course will be delivered three times over three years, with yearly revision based on assessments of student learning, faculty performance, and workshops with a cohort of UD polar scientists and active-learning researchers. They will compare student learning using the active-learning pedagogy to student learning via the traditional lecture course. Results will be disseminated to a broad network of educators and researchers through a collaborative polar science outreach network and through active-learning databases, e.g., PBL Clearinghouse, Science Education Resource Center (SERC), and the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.

Researchers at the University of Delaware (UD) and at Colgate University will revise and implement a course on polar science in the media. The course will equip students with the technical skills, including computer programming skills taught using a pair-programming approach, to evaluate geoscience data reported in the media and will place this data within a personal context using narratives that convey scientific information. Over the course of the project, ~100 non-geoscience major students will be immersed in a student-centered, data-driven course. Evaluations will focus on improving students' ability to analyze and understand the implications of data and on the transferability of the course materials to different institutions. The impact of this project will extend well beyond the award period through continued offerings at UD and Colgate University, by distributing the course and pedagogy content through the NSF-sponsored Science Education Resource Center (SERC) as the primary conduit to geoscience educators and through professional development workshops offered to new and existing geoscience instructors at major geoscience conferences.

A new polar science course for non-STEM majors will be designed and implemented. The course is based on a combination of cognitivism and constructivism and with quantitative metrics for assessing student progress on technical and narrative challenges. Evaluations will address the hypothesis that student exposure to a pair-programming pedagogy will improve their technical data access and interpretation skills and the hypothesis that students exposed to developed narrative structure exercises will demonstrate improved perspective-taking skills and will be able to demonstrate better understanding the narrative context in which the data are presented. The project is co-funded by the Office of Polar Programs and the Division of Undergraduate Education.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.