This article reminds me of several aspects of my student teaching. One was when my cooperating teacher had the Democrat and Chronicle delivered to her classroom about once every two weeks. She used this opportunity to have the students find any science article in the paper and had the students read them. I enjoyed seeing this happen within the schools, but I did see the need for this activity to be more situated within “true science”. By this I mean, the activity needed to dive deeper into what the students were reading, does it relate the earth science, is it true, where can we find holes in the articles, etc. This comes back to the critical thinking skill that everyone talks about.
A second aspect of my student teaching was bringing up current earth science events that are in the news. Pete mentioned this in class last night. He eluded to the idea that the curriculum has driven teaching so much that instruction can’t waiver to address these current events. I think earth science needs to use these annual events to help motivate students and to think crucially on a certain topic because of the quick bombardment of media attention and false science.
