Mitchell High School's Senior Seminar is a 5-credit interdisciplinary and experiential intensive learning program offered for one semester during a student's senior year. During that time the student takes no other coursework; he focuses on single subjects in learning blocks that may extend from two to four weeks. Program goals center on learning…

This USMES unit challenges students to construct practical shapes which can be used as dice to make a fair decision between two or among three, four, or more choices. The teacher resource book for the Dice Design unit contains five sections. The first section describes the USMES approach to student-initiated investigations of real problems,…

The idea of computerized car pooling originated in an American Contemporary Issues class at George Washington High School in Denver, Colorado, in the fall of 1973 when a fuel shortage was imminent. The students saw car pooling as a way to take effective action and, with the expertise of a computer math class, devised a program capable of…

Creative thinking and how to foster it is the focus of this resource book for teachers. Part One of this book emphasizes the theoretical background of the creative thinking concept and discusses the relationship between creative thinking, problem solving, science, and technology. Part Two focuses on three levels of inventing, each examining…

The key faculty teaching skills needed at McMaster University are those of facilitating problem-based, self-directed learning in small groups. A series of interdisciplinary workshops, offered to the school's medical faculty and to faculty from other health sciences centers to help them improve their skills, allows for direct observation, practice,…

Presented are four activities that focus on gathering and interpreting data about pizza as a basis for integrating mathematics, health, and social studies. Reproducible sheets for parents to use with their children, class-activity sheets, and a data sheet are provided. Each activity includes the objective, needed materials, directions, extensions,…

A curriculum involving reduced lecture time, small-group tutorials, a commitment to problem-based learning (PBL), and a strong reliance on self-directed study, was implemented at Harvard Medical School in 1985. This study focuses on the attitudes of 14 faculty tutors who had never tutored in a PBL curriculum. (MLW)

Throughout history, people have moved themselves and cargo across water in boats and other types of vessels. Most vessels are developed using a technological design process, which typically involves problem solving and a series of steps. The designer documents each step to provide an accurate record of accomplishments and information to guide…

This book is based on the idea that curriculum development projects focused on integrated or interdisciplinary teaching within the context of real-world problem solving creates dynamics and meaningful learning experiences for students. The real-world, problem-solving units presented in this book were created by four intern teachers, their mentor…

The purpose of this research study was to examine the level of elementary education majors' science content knowledge; pedagogical knowledge; and pedagogical content knowledge in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a new teacher preparation program for undergraduate students with a science area of concentration, developed as part of the Quality…

The purpose of this inquiry was to determine the perceptions of certain secondary students in the Greater Cincinnati (Ohio) area who experienced an integrated curriculum that combined the subjects of geometry and visual art. A mathematics teacher and a visual arts teacher collaborated to facilitate student discovery by implementing creative…

"Nature at Your Doorstep" is an outgrowth of a successful environmental education program offered as a school field trip at a Nature Discovery Center. It was developed and used with thousands of students throughout Bellaire, Texas and the surrounding Houston metroplex. The purpose of this program is to kindle students' curiosity and…

This paper presents Rowland's Ways of Knowing and Decision-making Model for curriculum development and how it can be applied to environmental education curricula. The model uses a problem solving approach based on steps of: (1) coming to know the problem through the ways of knowing of the disciplines and personal knowledge; (2) proposing solutions…

Both humanity and nature have suffered greatly from human insensitivity. Not only are the natural resources of the earth being depleted and its air, land, and water polluted, the financial resources of humanity are being wasted on destructive expenditures. The "Our Only Earth" series is an integrated science, language arts, and social studies…

The International Environmental Education Programme (IEEP) of UNESCO has developed a series of modules dealing with teacher training in environmental education. This module provides the contents of an experimental teacher training course in environmental education for the in-service training of elementary school teachers and administrators. The…