Why TREC in the Arctic:
The Arctic Region: A Dynamic Laboratory
The Arctic region is dynamic and complex, projecting a sense of mystery and awe, particularly for those who have not experienced it firsthand. It is a region of many environments and cultures–polar bears and whales, months of darkness and months of light, indigenous peoples with time-tested solutions to the challenges of surviving in extreme conditions–as well as a region where the tools of modern science are being deployed to help understand puzzling but dramatic events. In the last few decades, the scientific community has expressed concern about the vulnerability of the Arctic and its residents to environmental, social, and economic changes. Climate models indicate that the arctic environment may react particularly sensitively to global climate change. Recent research results show that arctic climate and ecosystems are changing substantially, with impacts on people living in and outside the Arctic. Many arctic residents are reporting rapid ecosystem change and believe that these developments are affecting their lives in significant ways. These processes appear to be linked to changes in the whole Northern Hemisphere, involving physical and biological processes in the atmosphere, ocean, and on land. We know that many of the phenomena we study in the Arctic, from deepest oceans to the atmosphere above, are part of global processes that affect people all across America.
Local knowledge, oral histories, and Native ways of knowing are important aspects of educating the world about life in the Arctic and the history of the region. People living in the circum-Arctic have coped successfully over millennia with an environment that includes some of the most extreme conditions on the planet, accumulating an extensive body of environmental knowledge as well as keen awareness of ecosystem changes. Arctic residents have a growing desire and capacity to share Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with researchers and the public. The Arctic serves as a laboratory of multidisciplinary research projects using cutting-edge techniques in a challenging environment to address questions at the local, regional and global scale. TREC builds on the outstanding scientific and cultural opportunities of the Arctic to link research and education through intriguing topics that will engage students and a public interested in exploring new regions and scientific mysteries.
Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning
The Teachers & Researchers - Exploring and Collaborating (TREC) program is built upon the inquiry-based teaching and learning methods suggested in the National Science Foundation's 2003 report New Formulas for America's Workforce http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2003/nsf03207/nsf03207.pdf, which calls for:
- Engaging in hands-on activity, using touch, smell, and motion to experience and study the world;
- Working in productive teams, collaborating, learning from and with colleagues;
- Looking at real-world contexts and problems with a scientific eye;
- Emphasizing personal mastery and developing confidence through problem-solving.
Place-Based Education
TREC also emphasizes place-based education, which addresses many of the same priorities. Sense of place or place-based education provides people with opportunities to learn about and connect with themselves, their community, and their environment. This type of education is based on the idea that everyone in a community has something to contribute to the education of its children and that students can work alongside adults to complete projects that are important to the community. It is rooted in integrated activities of science, social studies, communication arts, and fine arts and is applied by expanding the concept of the classroom into the schoolyard, the neighborhood, and the local environment. Place-based education allows learners to understand that what they learn is directly relevant to their world, and it teaches them to take pride in the place in which they live, to connect with the rest of the world in a natural way, and to participate in their communities as concerned and contributing citizens.
In many parts of the Arctic, residents are challenged by lack of jobs, geographic and climactic extremes contributing to isolation, high teen suicide rates, and lack of access to resources and people beyond their local communities. Scientific research, when coupled with a well-integrated education and outreach component such as TREC, can provide a medium through which local community members, including students, can know about, participate in, and contribute to research projects and learning opportunities of major significance in their own community and region. When community members can see that meaningful jobs exist in their communities if they have the skills and education, a positive force is set into motion that enhances community survival, and which may encourage economic growth and diversification. The conduct of science also demonstrates to the community that researchers can contribute in meaningful ways to their region, and that research and education benefit from community involvement. The potential for close relationships between scientists, teachers, and community members, made possible by TREC, provides an excellent means of facilitating a knowledgeable, informed citizenry.
The TREC program is committed to working with teachers and scientists to encourage community-based, hands-on, learner-centered, real-world learning experiences, assisting collaborators first in the region in which the research is conducted and then helping them to take these experiences and reflect and expand them within their own communities-in classroom study areas (science, social studies, communication arts, and the arts), outside the classroom, into the local community, and beyond.
Professional and Community Development
TREC provides professional development for the teachers who are placed into field research projects; for those who connect through the Internet, those who utilize the materials developed and archived in the TREC website, and those who join in the collaborative community facilitated and sustained through TREC. Three interwoven professional development tracks: 1) pedagogy (teaching, learning, making knowledge accessible), 2) technology (computer applications, online connections and communication, creation of sharable learning objects and activities) and 3) applied Arctic research (immersion in cutting edge research in the Arctic, transfer of this research into the classroom and community) will increase content knowledge, enhance teaching skills, and build a collaborative network of researchers, teachers, and communities. Researchers and research teams will collaborate with teachers, integrating research and education and infusing inquiry-based science into classrooms and communities. This collaboration invigorates science teaching and learning and instills in young people an enthusiasm for science, inquiry, and working together to address questions important to their communities.
Join Us
Join the TREC! Click on Requirements for information about TREC participation- for researchers, for teachers placed in field research experiences, and for those collaborating and connecting online.
Photos courtesy of Hajo Eicken