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Hello High School Science Teachers!

We have a great line up of ESTEP (Earth Science Teacher Education Project) BOOTCAMPS coming up this summer!  Check them ALL out HERE! 

New legislation states that all students must complete one credit of Earth and Space science in high school to graduate.  These boot camps will help deepen your understanding of the key content areas and 3-dimensional pedagogy.  Along with our summer bootcamps, these courses will help those of you working toward passing the required content MTLE exam to add additional licensure in 9-12 Earth and Space Science.  ESTEP is a fast paced, one week, bootcamp style, regional workshop that focuses on a specific set of earth and space science benchmarks AND the teaching strategies you will need to start making the shift to science sense-making with your students.  

• Deepen your understanding of earth science concepts through investigations! 
• Utilize 3-dimensional strategies by DOING the science! 
• Begin building confidence in your unit and lesson planning!
• Collaborate and discuss how phenomena and storylines relate to particular investigations! 

In addition to our scheduled camps, we are offering a brand new camp in the Metro area, July 22 - 26 2023, hosted by Russ and Mary Colson!  Here's the 'hot off the presses' course description!  

Stability and Change in Earth Systems: An ESTEP Bootcamp for High School Educators 

Hosted by Russ and Mary Colson

This course will provide professional development for in-service high school science teachers to address new state science standards which emphasize science as a practice more than a body of
knowledge (as per the Next Generation Science Standards) and in which earth science standards have been moved into the high school. The course will be offered as a 1-week, in-person
investigative workshop addressing stability and change in large scale Earth systems, including atmospheric energy balance and landscape evolution.

The bootcamp will address:
1) Use of experimental work in the earth science classroom,

2) Use of physical science concepts in the earth science classroom, and

3) mathematical modeling in the earth science classroom, including the elements listed below.  

The course will include experimental investigations, with design and stepwise data analysis and interpretation, of

1) Albedo (some things absorb more solar energy than others)
2) Heat capacity (some things heat up more than others given a fixed absorption)
3) Evaporative cooling (some things lose heat due to evaporation regardless of albedo or heat capacity)
4) Heat of vaporization (Evaporation and condensation are responsible for much of Earth’s atmospheric energy cycle)
5) Buoyancy and Archimedes Principle (the behavior of icebergs, mountains, and glaciated landscapes can be modeled using simple classroom experiments)
6) Measurement and interpretation of rock densities (to be applied in isostasy modeling in exercises 3, 4, and 5 below)

The course will include data set generation, interpretation, and modeling of
1) Earth’s global heat balance
2) Earth’s global water cycle
3) Glacial rebound
4) Topographic relief of the Yellowstone Plateau
5) Topographic differences among ocean basins, continents, and mountain belts
6) Engineering application: Stability of ships at sea (Plimsoll lines) and flotation of submarines

Participants will get GIS experience as they use Google Earth to generate topographic data that will be interpreted. In addition, participants will engage in daily discussions of 3-dimensional learning and how the concepts, experiments, and modeling exercises listed above might be integrated into a high school class.

 Click on the link above for all the details and how to register for our boot camps AND learn more about all our ESTEP programming!

Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF) as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).