Monarch Monitoring: A Teacher/Student/Scientist
Collaboration Research Project
Carol Freeman, University of Minnesota
 Monarch
Monitoring is a field research experience designed to help middle and high
school science teachers achieve the science standards by incorporating
active research practices into classroom teaching. This hand on science
experience with funding from the NSF expands work with K-12 teachers by Dr.
Karen Oberhauser, U of M Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior and
the Minnesota Science Museum.
Teacher/student teams participate in two intense, week-long research
institutes in Minnesota and Texas which provide a unique opportunity for
teachers to develop a broad repertoire of knowledge and skills that will
enable them to guide their classes in active research and inquiry. In
addition, participants work with scientists to design research projects that
contribute to real and important efforts to preserve Monarch habitat from
Canada to Mexico.
Initial findings from the evaluation of Monarch Monitoring conducted by
CAREI, identified the strongest feature of the project:
Participants (teachers, students, and scientists) engaged in six to ten
mini-research experiences through all stages - question and hypothesis
generation, methods development, and data collection, analysis, and
dissemination. Teachers said this was the most important feature of the
institutes.
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"Going through this so many times, you
really got kind of good at it."
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"I had never done much research, and I just
didn't feel real comfortable leading my class through research
projects."
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"It has totally changed my approach." "Every
unit that I do now, my whole focus in on how can I turn this around for
them to do it."
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"I'm working with a committee for
implementing the national science standards and inquiry learning, and we
really didn't have a real good idea about how you do this. . . [This
project] was absolutely the most wonderful way to teach me that because
we did it every day,
-
"We learned a lot of new field techniques. .
. new ways to collect data that's easy for students; they can do them in
a day."
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"It's been really helpful to me in designing
these performance packages or performance assessments."
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"They really showed us how to show the
students the scientific method"
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"I expect more of the students because I
know that I taught it better."
One teacher's comment sums up the participants' feelings: "I've done lots
of things in the last 20 years in education, and this is by far the best
thing I have ever done."
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