An experimental exercise used to determine if Mississippi's science framework is adequately preparing high school graduates to make informed decisions about groundwater.

Abstract

According to the National Science Education Standards, eighth graders should possess appropriate knowledge about groundwater and its role in sustaining life on Earth. There were two groups of students studied, Mississippi eighth graders and earth science students at Mississippi State University. Both groups were tested to identify what types of ideas they possess about groundwater. This information can be invaluable information for high school and postsecondary science teachers in addressing students' prior conceptions. In addition, the data could provide science educators insight on where curriculum revisions in the science framework are needed. Both groups were given one multiple choice question and one drawing exercise. The multiple choice question and drawing were both scored by a rubric for evidence of understanding the formation, movement, and storage of groundwater. It is to be noted that from five Mississippi public schools, 92 percent of the eighth graders have naive conceptions concerning groundwater. Seventy-two percent of the undergraduate college students have naive conceptions concerning groundwater. These results show that there are some gaps within the secondary science curricula.

Introduction and Background

The aims of the present study are to show the importance of earth science in secondary schools. There is a need to make earth science more available and more relevant to the Mississippi Science Framework in 2006. So that students will be exposed to a wider variety of rigorous and relevant science activities within the science curriculum, a proposal was made during the Science Framework Revision Workshop of the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) in October 2005. Mississippi State University is taking the lead in promoting these changes to secondary science education with the Department of Geosciences as the resource for secondary teachers as the proposed change occurs. Currently, the science framework has some gaps so that many students are not ready for Biology I as freshmen. The geosciences could be the bridge for such a gap, because the geosciences bring together biology, chemistry, and physics and make those subjects more relevant to the students. In addition to integrating the natural sciences, they bring political, social, economics, and mathematics concepts to the minds of the students. Students' interest can be sparked and directed more to the sciences by bringing things together in such a way.

This study examines Mississippi eighth graders' understanding of groundwater and compares their understanding to that of earth science students at Mississippi State University. This will provide support for a science framework with more rigor and relevance in the geosciences at the secondary level in Mississippi. MDE is interested in the Rigor/Relevance Framework (International Center for Leadership in Education, n.d.), a framework tool examines curriculum, instruction, and assessment. It uses a familiar knowledge taxonomy (Bloom's Taxonomy), while encouraging a move to application of knowledge. The Rigor/Relevance Framework (International Center for Leadership in Education, n.d.) helps make explicit the relevance of learning to the real world, broadening the historically narrow focus on acquisition of knowledge (Miles, 2005). Thus, during the 2006 Mississippi Science Framework Revision, the committee is challenged with this integration into all sciences, and the geosciences could be the component that brings all disciplines together for science, math, and technology so that the National Science Education Standards are addressed in a proper manner.

Several states, such as Georgia, New York, and Pennsylvania, have already realized the importance of geosciences as a vector for integration. In 2004, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed into law the environment and earth science (ESE) standards as core content knowledge for all public school students. As a result, the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Center for Environmental Education, and the State System of Higher Education formed a partnership to survey all teacher preparation institutions in the state (Mastrilli, 2005).

There are several research reports that support such movements as that of the Pennsylvania law. According to Orion and Kail (2005), students have considerable difficulties in understanding the basic concepts underlying the scientific inquiry, and that "The Rock Cycle" and "The Water Cycle" have the potential to help in developing such understanding. In their study, Orion and Kail (2005) found an unexpected gender difference. Girls outperformed boys in scientific thinking on both the pretest and the posttest involving the rock cycle and the water cycle. The unique character of geosciences methodology, with structured-inquiry and meta-cognitive activities, served as an appropriate framework for students to develop basic scientific thinking. Recent science education reform efforts have encouraged the development of hands-on laboratory and field activities to improve the high school science curriculum (Trop, Krockover, and Ridgway, 2000). In addition, many science education reform recommendations call for active learning styles that contain critical thinking and problem solving rather than passive learning (Rimal and Stieglitz, 2000). Trop, Krockover, and Ridgway (2000) presented research that students are more likely to understand hydrological concepts through real world experiences in their study of 528 high school students.

With all these facts in mind, we wanted some comparison data that would start to show the gaps between eighth grade and undergraduate earth science students. Showing the gaps in the curriculum will make a compelling case to the MDE for geosciences integration into the new science framework. We identified one such gap as that of the understanding of groundwater by both eighth graders and undergraduate earth science students. According to the National Science Education Standards (1996), eighth graders should possess appropriate knowledge about groundwater. If they master the standards, students are more likely to carry that knowledge with them through secondary school without reinforcement.

Method

This paper reports on one aspect of a larger research study conducted to examine understanding of groundwater principles and processes held by children and adults. The study is limited in scope (i.e., just including Mississippi students). The insights gained, however, will aid in developing and refining the Mississippi Science Framework so that it meets the needs of students. There are larger scale studies being conducted at Purdue University for the purpose of gaining a more complete and accurate picture of teaching and learning about groundwater in the U.S. and abroad (Dickerson, Callahan, Sickle, and Hay, 2005).

First, before any students were studied, we sought approval from the Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects in Research (IRB) at Mississippi State University. The IRB addressed such issues as confidentiality of all students' information and voluntary participation. Students were assured that all information would remain confident and that there was no possibility of risk or discomfort during this research project. Assurance was given to students who refused participation and those who chose to discontinue participation at any point during the study that there would be no penalty or loss of benefits because of their choice. After students gave their informed consent, they were included in the study. As well, parental approval was necessary in order for eighth graders to participate with a licensed school teacher as the researcher.

We used Dickerson and Dawkins' (2004) methodology set forth in the article, "Eighth Grade Students' Understanding of Groundwater" in the Journal of Geoscience Education. The methods for both the eighth graders and the undergraduate college students were the same. A total of 115 eighth grade students from five different Mississippi public school districts participated. The participants reflected the demographic composition of the schools in areas of race, socioeconomic status, and gender. While there was a broad skill base among students, most students had a D average or better. In the eighth grade classes, the focus was explicitly on groundwater in only one fifty-minute class period during a nine-week course. At the beginning of the period, the students were given instructions about the survey. The survey consisted of two questions: (a) one multiple choice item and (b) one open response drawing prompt. A multiple choice item and rubric developed by Dickerson & Dawkins (2004) was used to evaluate the students in a pre-test and post-test design (see Table 1). The drawing prompt was included to check for evidence of understanding of groundwater formation, movement, and storage. At the end of the fifty-minute period of instruction and modeling of groundwater flow, the students engaged in discussion about the survey and had many reflections about groundwater movement.

The MSU earth science students reflected the same demographic composition of the public schools. However, there were some differences in age and gender. There were more females than males with ages ranging from 17 to 31. The race distribution was similar to the race distribution in the public schools. A total of 124 MSU earth science students participated in the study. In the undergraduate lab on hydrology, the earth science students were given the same survey and fifty-minute lecture/modeling session as the eighth graders were given. Toward the end of the session, the earth science students were engaged in discussion and reflections about the survey. However, the college students had fewer reflections than the eighth graders. Their survey was also graded by the rubric shown in Table 1.

Results

Of the 115 eighth graders who completed the multiple choice item, 33 students received a score of 1 and 5 students received a score of 2, thus leaving 77 students (67% of the eighth grade population tested) with no understanding that groundwater resides beneath the surface of the earth or in what medium. Over all 92% of the eighth graders from Mississippi schools have a naive conception about groundwater. Of the 124 MSU earth science students who completed the multiple choice item, 56 students received a score of 1 and 15 students received a score of 2, thus leaving 53 students (43% of the MSU earth science population tested) with no understanding that groundwater resides beneath the surface of the earth or in what medium. Insight into these data reveals that one-half of the earth science students enrolled at MSU have some understanding that groundwater occurs beneath the surface of the earth, but they still do not understand how groundwater functions. Over all 72% have naive conceptions about groundwater. A possible reason for this misunderstanding could be that students were not required to study earth science after eighth grade, and it is apparent that the 115 tested eighth grade students did not have a scientifically appropriate understanding of groundwater.

Both groups of students frequently used the phrases "underground stream" and "underground pool" in labeling their drawings. Additionally, words and phrases such as "pores," "water table," "aquifer," and "flows" appeared in many of the drawings that contained "underground pools" or "underground streams." In most cases, the vernacular terms such as "underground streams" were disconnected from the typically scientific terms such as "pores" and "pressure." In almost all drawings, pores do not connect in any way to the underground pool. The isolation of groundwater concepts commonly occurred in the student drawings. Additional in-depth research is needed to determine the nature of the conceptions these drawings represent.

From the multiple choice survey question, the most frequent answers included river (A), underground pool (C), underground stream (H), and lake (I). All students who completed the survey included one or more of these answers. These answers reflect the results of the study of Dickerson and Dawkins (2004) who studied eighth graders with no comparison group.

Conclusions

Both groups of students hold naive conceptions concerning groundwater, although the nature of those conceptions is not easily recognized because of the way that groundwater concepts are typically explained. Even at the introductory level, students may have some difficulty with the interdisciplinary nature of hydrogeology as they struggle to understand the interconnection among topics in geology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. One reason for the difficulty of understanding the interdisciplinary nature may be the lack of reinforcement of integrated science in the high school science framework. The teaching of earth science and integrative science stops in the eighth grade for a majority of Mississippi students. It stops because it is not in the science framework and teachers lack training in how to integrate the sciences.

One way to address students' inappropriate conceptions involves more rigor and relevance in the science education framework. In many cases, more comprehensive instruction in science education would require teachers themselves to get more training. Thus, there would be a need for workshops that address these topics. National Science Foundation grants would be a start in implementing these new integrated methods of teaching science. Another option would be for teachers to assist students in better visualization of groundwater concepts along with other topics in the geosciences. However, oversimplified models could prompt students to develop disconnected, isolated notions of groundwater concepts that yield incomplete and inaccurate concepts (Dickerson and Dawkins, 2004).

According to Dickerson and Dawkins (2004), among the first steps in addressing students' misconceptions of groundwater is the recognition by science educators and the scientific community that this is a problem area. Mississippi's science educators are sending high school graduates out into the real world without common science knowledge about critical issues such as groundwater management. Changing the science framework to bridge these necessary gaps in science education could lie within the geosciences to make Mississippi's high school graduates more informed citizens. Thus, scientists who are in positions to educate teachers and citizens in the community can contribute enormously by examining their own roles and practices. Perhaps most importantly, science teachers can and should increase their own accurate understanding of the content and exercise great care in choosing appropriate strategies and materials as they prepare to teach. Educational programs in hydrogeology are often criticized as being too theoretical. Responding to this call for education and training, Auburn University worked with high schools and undergraduate programs to make them more of a hands-on experience and relevant to students' lives (Lee, 1998). Reform is needed in our Mississippi science framework, teacher education, and undergraduate programs for Mississippi students to be prepared for the real world.

References

Dickerson, D., Callahan, T. J., Sickle, M. V., and Hay, G., 2005, Students' conceptions of scale regarding groundwater, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 53, p. 374-380.

Dickerson, D., and Dawkins, K., 2004, Eighth grade students' understanding of groundwater, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 52, p. 178-181.

International Center for Leadership in Education, Rigor/relevance framework, http://www.daggett.com/rigor.html

Lee, M., 1998, Hands-on laboratory exercises for an undergraduate hydrology course, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 46, p. 433.

Mastrilli, T., 2005, Environmental education in Pennsylvania's elementary teacher education programs: A statewide report, The Journal of Environmental Education, v. 36, p. 22-30.

Miles, J., 2003, Increasing the rigor and relevance of the curriculum. New York: International Center Press.

National Science Education Standards, 1996, Washington, D.C., National Academy Press.

Orion, N., and Kail, K., 2005, The effect of an earth-science learning program on students' scientific thinking skills, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 53, p. 387-393.

Rimal, N., and Stieglitz, R. D., 2000, Hands on learning for geoscience concepts, Journal of Environmental Education, v. 62, p. 277-284.

Trop, J. M., Krockover, G. H., and Ridgway, K. D., 2000, Integration of field observations with laboratory modeling for understanding hydrologic processes in an undergraduate earth science course, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 45, p. 514-521.

Rodney W. Beasley*, Burnett Hamil, James May and Darrel Schmitz, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762

Corresponding Author: Rodney Beasley [e-mail]

Table 1. Multiple Choice Item and Rubric.

Item   If a person drilled a well to get groundwater, from where would
       this water come? (Choose all that apply.)
       A. river
       B. sand layer
       C. underground pool
       D. water tower
       E. soil
       F. spigot or faucet
       G. solid/fractured rock
       H. underground stream
       I. lake
       J. city water supply

Score  Definition of Level             Classification of Level

2      Approaching a scientifically    Answer only includes one or more
       appropriate understanding of    of the following: B, G, and/or E
       groundwater
1      Understands that groundwater    Answer may but does not have to
       occurs beneath the surface of   include any of the following: B,
       the earth, but does not         G, E
       understand how groundwater      AND
       functions                       Must include one or both of the
                                       following: C, H
0      Does not understand that        Any combination not listed above
       groundwater resides beneath
       the surface of the earth or in
       what medium