Louisiana+State+University+&+4-H+Science

//What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating?// Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge has created this curriculum as part of its 4-H Science Youth Wetlands Education and Outreach Program. //What is the overall mission of the organization?// The mission of the 4-H Science community is to make whoever runs their programs an entrepreneur that is able to manage resources, sustain partnerships, critique and sustain "comprehensive, high quality informal science education programs". This resulting character is what they call a "4-H professional". //What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization?// The mission of the Youth Wetlands Education and Outreach program, according to the 4-H Science website is to: [] //What does the curriculum module aim to teach? What are the learning outcomes supposed to be?// This curriculum aims to create a statewide awareness program for the needs of the natural wetlands and the impact of their depletion for the nation. The ultimate learning outcome is how students can help protect, conserve, and restore Louisiana's wetlands. //Do you think the curriculum is appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes?// I think this curriculum, through its sustained educational opportunities, is set out to provide a wide perspective and a mix of theoretical and experiential learning for students in the program. This will absolutely provide the perspective and awareness necessary to empower students to take viable action in wetland preservation. Does the curriculum teach the kind of literacies advocated by EcoEd? What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes advocated by EcoEd? EcoEd: //Understanding of their own health and well-being as shaped by an array of both proximate and far-off causes.// Curriculum: This curriculum features many field trips through various seasons to see the state of local wetlands in Louisiana, asking students to identify resources like food that come from the wetland ecosystem. Part of the in-class comprehensive pieces focus on wetlands as water purifiers, groundwater filtering and dispersion, on both a local and global scale. This shows students how their local wetlands provide them with healthy food and water, as well as protection from flood and pollution. EcoEd: //Understanding of how their actions have an array of proximate and far off effects.// Curriculum: The curriculum's sections each focus on an aspect of the wetlands (types of marshes, salinity levels, flora & fauna), a negative phenomena occurring with each aspect (salinification, endangered species, etc.), and how this negative phenomena would affect their lives on a local and global scale. It references individual countries, their relevant statistics and the state of their wetlands. All of this contributes to a global-scale chain of reasoning within students' local wetlands and the impact they have by not protecting them. EcoEd: //Understanding of different scientific disciplines and medical specializations, aware that they rely on diverse methods, produce many types of knowledge, and are ever evolving-- science as a crucial but far from straightforward social resource.// Curriculum: This curriculum is based on using the scientific method for gathering and analyzing data from local wetlands, with a focus on science as a learning tool. The curriculum emphasizes science and scientists as a reliable source for measuring the state of wetlands and their impact. This requires students to experience many scientific methods and the types of knowledge and insights it provides. It does not provide any way of observing how science is changing, or question its validity. EcoEd: //Understanding of government at various scales, from the local to transnational made up of diverse agencies and types of experts, which rely on diverse decision-making processes.// Curriculum: Throughout the curriculum the program provides its references, allowing facilitators and teachers to direct students to relevant stakeholders in wetlands. Much of this refers to government websites, for the U.S. and nationally. It also asks students to identify historical and current government decisions could affect their wetlands (e.g. "have the students suggest possible effects on coastal Louisiana since oil and gas exploration began In the early 1900s"(46)). EcoEd: //Understanding of potential for change, alternative ways of doing things and organizing society.// Curriculum: This entire curriculum is based around the need for action in order to preserve Louisiana's wetlands, asking students to evaluate and enact change for the better, locally, and globally. EcoEd: //Use empirical understanding of complex causation to identify specific points of intervention.// Curriculum: Through activities that recall on previous experience and lectures from the program students are asked to create a chain of cause and affect as they develop their understanding of damage to wetlands. One example of this is concept maps, used after a lecture and reading session, which specifically ask for the cause and affect leading to a certain problem (e.g. sediment loss). EcoEd: //Recognize the multitude of factors influencing what they are told about environmental problems, including vested interests, disciplinary bias and blindness, and the sheer limits of knowledge.// Curriculum: This curriculum attacks the cause of wetland damage and its prevention from all angles. It looks into political decisions and policies, environmental cause and effect and natural processes, social impact and need for wetlands, all on a local (via experience) and global (via research and reading exercises) scale. This brings concerns of ignorance, bias, lack of knowledge, and data as a viable reading of environmental problems all into play, and creates a natural environment for students to tackle them. EcoEd: //Recognize and productively deal with diverse perspectives, avoiding the paralysis often produced by insistence on "balance" and "consensus" leveraging heterogeneous collectivity and epistemological pluralism.// Curriculum: Throughout this curriculum students are tackling opposing viewpoints, laws, and activities. They are just by participating dealing with the many sides and motives behind the role of wetlands, and acting against the norm created by society. EcoEd: //Creative info-seeking practices, animated analytic capabilities, and a capacity to narrate complex chains of events.// Curriculum: Students are asked to explore wetlands and learn about them through hands-on field trips that involve taking samples and data readings. They are asked to analyze the state of their wetlands through observation, long-term data collection, and then asked to illustrate what they have learned in culminating exercises. These exercises dive into the chain of cause and effect through the various topics surrounding wetlands within politics, economics, their local environment and their observations. EcoEd: //Understanding of the challenges and value of deliberation and cooperative action.// Curriculum: While this program does not directly address this literacy in its format, students will be wrestling to understand why local, federal, and national policy continue to prevent progress on protecting wetlands. This will get them to consider the challenges of getting different organizations working together. Students will also be shown how group efforts locally and globally have made an impact on preserving wetlands so far.
 * 1)  "Instill into students the complexities and consequences of continued unprecedented loss of wetlands on the citizenry of Louisiana;
 * 2)  Encourage students to act as ambassadors for wetland conservation and restoration and to share their views and knowledge with others in their community;
 * 3)  Motivate youth to become responsible environmental stewards by their participation in wetland related summer camp activities; and
 * 4)  Encourage teachers to promote student participation by utilizing science-based, hands-on lessons which bridge theory with practice."