Creating an Atmosphere for STEM Literacy in the Rural South Through Student-Collected Weather Data

ABSTRACT

This paper is an examination of a teacher professional development program in northeast Louisiana, that provided 30 teachers and their students with the technology, skills, and content knowledge to collect data and explore weather trends. Data were collected from both continuous monitoring weather stations and simple school-based weather stations to better understand core disciplinary ideas connecting Life and Earth sciences. Using a curricular model that combines experiential and place-based educational approaches to create a rich and relevant atmosphere for STEM learning, the goal of the program was to empower teachers and their students to engage in ongoing data collection analysis that could contribute to greater understanding and ownership of the environment at the local and regional level. The program team used a mixed-methodological approach that examined implementation at the site level and student impact. Analysis of teacher and student surveys, teacher interviews and classroom observation data suggest that the level of implementation of the program related directly to the ways in which students were using the weather data to develop STEM literacy. In particular, making meaning out of the data by studying patterns, interpreting the numbers, and comparing with long-term data from other sites seemed to drive critical thinking and STEM literacy in those classrooms that fully implemented the program. Findings also suggest that the project has the potential to address the unique needs of traditionally underserved students in the rural south, most notably, those students in high-needs rural settings that rely on an agrarian economy.

Key words::

• STEM literacy
• place-based education

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the Board of Regents Louisiana (LaSIP) for funding both Phase I (LaSIP 10-210-ULM-8) and Phase II (LaSIP 12-212-ULM-S) programs. We are grateful to all school administrators for allowing their teachers be a part of these programs. We appreciate the permission given by Gay Brently at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to use sites at Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge, and we are grateful to Doug Seegers, City of West Monroe, for giving us access to Restoration Park and Kiroli Park to implement phases of these programs.