Experimenting with Interdisciplinary Science

For the past 3 years a biologist, chemist, physicist, and science educator at Louisiana Tech University have worked together to develop a year-long interdisciplinary science course. The course helps students who are preparing to be teachers understand that science disciplines differ from one another in many ways but are all part of the same scientific enterprise and share a common purpose and philosophy. Course development was funded by the Louisiana Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers (LaCEPT).

The course was a collaborative venture involving three colleges and four departments. It consisted of a three-quarter sequence of science courses (physics, chemistry, biology) integrated with a science teaching methods course. The course was team taught, with all four faculty members present in the classroom at all times. This situation led to lively discussions among faculty from different disciplines, who often approached the same concept from different perspectives and with different vocabularies! Although topics in each of the courses were traditional to the discipline, the presence of faculty from other disciplines allowed us to develop many connections among the sciences. As they worked to understand how certain water bugs could "walk" on water and how water could move to the top of a tall tree against the force of gravity, for example, students developed an understanding of the particulate nature of matter, atomic structure, the special properties of water molecules, and the forces of cohesion and adhesion. These understandings were developed by students working in groups to conduct both short-term and long-term investigations as they attempted to answer questions posed by the instructor or that arose as a natural consequence of their own experiences. The investigative process became a common thread linking all scientific disciplines. Follow-up discussions to student investigations focused on developing in-depth understanding of basic science concepts and relating the science learned in the classroom to the real world.

Instructional techniques designed to promote student thinking were an integral part of the course. Students were asked to explain observations that challenged their current beliefs about how the world works. They drew pictures, diagrams, and concept maps to clarify and organize relationships among science concepts. As students designed and conducted experiments and presented interpretations of the data they collected, they were actively involved in discussing science concepts with each other and the faculty. Faculty asked probing questions to expand student thinking and clarify conceptual development. Assessments requiredstudents to apply the science concepts they had learned in a new situation.

Students met weekly with the science teaching methods instructor to discuss instructional methodologies that could be used to transfer the science they were learning to their future classrooms. Activities in the science methods portion of the course were designed for the elementary classroom but correlated with and reinforced the science concepts presented in the interdisciplinary science portion of the course.

The course format was chosen at the time the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) and the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993) were being finalized. These instruments guided our thoughts about what all students should know and be able to do to be scientifically literate. In addition, we based our course design on inputs from hundreds of science teachers with whom we had worked. Practicing teachers felt that the undergraduate science courses they had taken had required them to memorize science facts with little or no understanding of basic science concepts and with no idea of how to "do science". Consequently they viewed science as something reserved for only a few special individuals and had great difficulty helping their students understand what science is and why it is important to them. They urged us to develop hands-on, interactive science courses that would involve undergraduates in "doing science".

What have we learned from this experience? There are major advantages for both faculty and students involved in this type of science course. As instructors we gained new perspectives on our own disciplines as well as insights into the disciplines of others. We also had the chance to practice and refine many instructional strategies designed to help students learn science. Students realized that science was all about questions rather than about answers. They felt free to question each other and the faculty once they saw faculty members questioning one another. Students loved the hands-on, minds-on approach to learning science. They thought they had a greater understanding of the science as a result of actually conducting investigations and discussing the results. In addition, students began to see the connections among the science disciplines. As one student explained to an external program evaluator, "We felt overwhelmed at first with physics and chemistry, but now we're feeling much better about them. We're beginning to see how it all fits together now. They (the faculty) all teach in here at the same time and when we're talking about biology, one of the other faculty will bring up how physics and chemistry fit in. We're beginning to get it!" Students also felt strongly that the integration of the science methods with the science content helped them understand what and how they would be teaching in the future. One student's comment expressed a common feeling, "This class has shown me that science can be fun, and I'm excited about teaching it."

So where are we now after three years? The biology section of the integrated course and one of the two quarters of the physical science portion of the course are regularly offered for education majors. Methodologies developed in the integrated science course have been modified and introduced into large lecture sections of introductory science courses for all students. Revision of the curriculum for elementary education majors is continuing. Are we finished with what we started three years ago? Sometimes we feel as if we have barely scratched the surface!

For additional information on course content and instructional strategies contact the authors at Louisiana Tech University, Department of Biological Sciences, Ruston, LA 71272.

Acknowledgment

Funding for LaCEPT was provided by a grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (DUE - 9255761) and the Louisiana Board of Regents.