LaTroya A. Hester
Social Impact Communicator | Trainer | Founder
Unlocking Secrets of the Earth:
Preparing Science Teacher Leaders in Thailand
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The devastating impact of the 2007 Southeast Asia tsunami on Thailand and neighboring countries raised Thai science teachers’ awareness of the need for earth science and natural disaster education. Immediately following the tsunami, interviews with community members in Phucket and in surrounding areas revealed the beliefs many people held regarding the cause of the tsunami. Supernatural and non-scientific explanations were often used to make sense of both the earthquake and subsequent tidal wave. This prompted Thai science educators’ interest in strengthening the earth science content knowledge of elementary school teachers and in creating a cadre of lead teachers with particular expertise in this area.
Deborah Tippins, from the Department of Mathematics and Science Education, and the Department of Elementary and Social Studies Education collaborated with science educators at Kasetsart University in Bangkok to design a three-day earth science and natural disaster awareness workshop. Forty elementary school teachers from across Thailand participated in the event at Kasetsart University.
Tippins and four science education doctoral students joined two faculty members from Kasetsart in facilitating the workshop. Participants engaged in hands-on activities to learn about plate tectonics, mountain building, volcanism, erosion, global warming, and weather phenomena. Moreover, the science teachers discussed principals of service-learning, and planned natural disaster awareness service-learning projects for students in their respective regions.
As an extension of the workshop, a tsunami simulation inquiry lab based on the data collected from the Southeast Asia was the developed. This lab activity has been incorporated into the UGA International Science Education (ESCI 8100) course. Overall, this project represents a model of what earth science education might look like for the next generation of citizens in a rapidly globalizing world.