Title,Recipient,Competition,"Fiscal Year","Award Number","Federal Funding","Principal Investigator",State,City,County,District,Lat/Long,"Grant Dates",Abstract,Partners "Great Lakes Rocks: Earth Systems Science Teacher Professional Development","Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) Chicago","2011/2012:  ELG for Formal K-12 Education",2012,NA12SEC0080015,"$426,580","Nicole Kowrach",Illinois,Chicago,Cook,IL02,"41.79165, -87.58369","2012-08-01T00:00:00 - 2015-07-31T00:00:00","The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago (MSI) offers teacher professional development courses geared toward 4-8th grade teachers in high needs schools and with limited experience in science content. Through the Great Lakes Revealed (GLR) education course, teachers explored the interconnectedness of the Earth’s systems through the unique lens of the Great Lakes region, and learned how climate has changed through time. Through hands-on and inquiry-based activities, MSI Senior Educators guided teacher through lessons and other resources, modeling content and pedagogy best practices, and encouraging knowledge building through a combination of experience, critical thinking and reflection. Participants also interacted with NOAA’s Science on a Sphere, with educators at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and with scientists from Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. Formal evaluation shows that GLR teachers complete the program with substantially improved content knowledge, teaching skills, and confidence in science teaching, many becoming teacher leaders at their schools. The second stage of the GLR program involves a select group of teachers from the first year’s cohort who will deepen their understanding of climate change in the Great Lakes region by engaging in data-driven problem-based activities. Building on teachers’ content knowledge, this program will help teachers develop mechanisms to search, access, and use high quality tabular, graphical, and visual data to support effective climate change education. NOAA’s Science on a Sphere datasets will play a central role as teachers explore and then develop their own problem-based lessons to deliver to their own students during a Student Summit at MSI.","Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, National Marine Sanctuary (NMS) / Thunder Bay"