IEC/CEED: INTEGRATED ECOLOGY CURRICULUM PROGRAM AND COLUMBIA ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AT A DISTANCE
The Integrated Ecology Curriculum (IEC) program developed by CEES is a unique approach to middle school education that uses topics in environmental science as a framework for problem-oriented, place-based learning. Ecology is used as the conceptual “hook” to place subject content in larger contexts, encouraging cross-disciplinary collaborations among teachers, and engaging teachers and students in experiential learning.
CEES has an agenda to provide environmental education, but the benefits of IEC go beyond science, to strengthen academic outcomes across subjects. Field investigations provide a means to gain very specific skills: sustained observation, inference, developing testable questions, gathering, evaluating, and synthesizing information, and analysis and presentation. More generally, we want students to develop habits of mind, and to think meta-cognitively: to understand “how we know what we know.” These skills are critical in science but are transferable to any subject and indeed, to any profession. Student mastery of these skills will serve them well in their academic and work careers and as private citizens facing a highly technical, quickly changing society. In addition, higher thinking skills work to reinforce content knowledge so that students are likely to better retain and apply what they’ve learned in their subject classes.
Online Professional Development with Teacher College: Columbia Environmental Education at a Distance (CEED)
In partnership with Teachers College, CEES has created online professional development courses, using Pearson Learning Systems as the course platform. Through “Columbia Environmental Education at a Distance (CEED), educators will gain 3 nationally-accredited CEUs, and will enjoy the benefits of intensive training and guided curriculum design, provided by experts from Teachers College and Columbia University. The 8-week courses will combine the flexibility of asynchronous instruction and activities (which teachers may complete individually on their own time), with the interaction and immediacy of “live” group planning and field activities made possible by real-time collaborative technology. During weekly planning meetings, teachers collectively develop and assess project-based, experiential units that are integrated across multiple subjects. These planning meetings will be moderated by instructors with experience both in the classroom and in outdoor and/or informal education, providing participants with the combined benefit of peer feedback from colleagues and expert guidance from the instructors. Sessions are being offered monthly from July through November 2012.
Our accomplishments in On-site Programs
2010: With the support of the Robin Hood Foundation (RHF), CEES has implemented its Integrated Ecology Curriculum (IEC) in five high-poverty NYC public middle schools over the past 18 months. We’ve seen a major positive effect on the approximately1000 students we’ve reached: Severe Truancy has dropped by an average of 41.0%; Suspensions have dropped by an average of 74.0%; there has been a 58.0% decrease in failures in ELA courses; a 36.5% decrease in failures in Math courses; a 48% increase in students who performed at grade level on their ELA standardized tests; a 28% increase in students who performed at grade level on their Math standardized tests; and IEC schools surpassed their peer schools in performance at grade level on standardized tests in 54% of the comparisons, as compared to the previous year when these same schools surpassed their peers in only 33% of the comparisons – a 64% improvement.
Integrated Projects Weeks
The key to working with the dedicated teachers of MS88 lay in developing a “test run” that would provide proof of concept, build trust, and demonstrate how IEC would work in practice. This “test” was dubbed Integrated Projects Week (IPW), and later became a cornerstone of IEC, institutionalized in the school culture. During IPW, regular classes are suspended so that groups of students and teachers can work together on projects driven by an ecology framework. These projects are team-taught and call for knowledge across disciplines. Projects focus on a particular ecology concept, and feature guest speakers, field trips, experimentation and modeling, culminating in a final product or event.
The pilot IPW in 2005 was a resounding success. Projects included “Radio Red Hook” (examining the environmental and social isolation of Red Hook through the lens of island ecology, with a radio broadcast as the final product); “The Nature of Invention” (using models of flight in nature to design flying machines); and “The Survivor and the Poet” (exploring themes of competition and adaptation, expressed in a final poetry slam). Word quickly spread via enthusiastic students and teachers, and the first school-wide IPW was held the following semester.
The pilot IPW in 2005 was a resounding success. Projects included “Radio Red Hook” (examining the environmental and social isolation of Red Hook through the lens of island ecology, with a radio broadcast as the final product); “The Nature of Invention” (using models of flight in nature to design flying machines); and “The Survivor and the Poet” (exploring themes of competition and adaptation, expressed in a final poetry slam). Word quickly spread via enthusiastic students and teachers, and the first school-wide IPW was held the following semester.
Integrating the Curriculum, Schoolwide
The success of IPW paved the way for full implementation of the IEC throughout the 6th through 8th grade curriculum, now that the school community had gained a deeper, practical understanding of integration and collaboration.
Professional development time was set aside for ecology training for all teachers, supplemented by regular curriculum retreats, where selected teachers would meet over 1-3 days to map the school curriculum. Maps revealed what students were learning in each subject over the course of the year, allowing teachers to align their own lessons accordingly. More importantly, teachers worked to identify ecology-based links and develop conceptual questions that spanned disciplines. Weekly grade-wide meetings allowed teachers to continually update and refine these links.
Professional development time was set aside for ecology training for all teachers, supplemented by regular curriculum retreats, where selected teachers would meet over 1-3 days to map the school curriculum. Maps revealed what students were learning in each subject over the course of the year, allowing teachers to align their own lessons accordingly. More importantly, teachers worked to identify ecology-based links and develop conceptual questions that spanned disciplines. Weekly grade-wide meetings allowed teachers to continually update and refine these links.