Thursday, December 3, 2009

Education evaluation

For anyone who wasn’t at the education presentation day. Arielle and I surveyed two high school classes of 9th and 10th graders on global warming. The high school group we compared to an equal number of randomly chosen FGCU students. We did this to evaluate FGCU success on educating the students on nature resources and climate change. We had six questions on facts about global warming and the other four questions were about the student thoughts on global warming. We got 69 student from each group to answer the survey. We wanted the same number to be able to not only compare each other with percents but in real numbers. I thought it was interesting that on the question that we asked which was not a contributor of global warming and about half of the FGCU students responded saying water vapor and 75% high school responded in the same way. Almost a third of high school students polled knew that the America did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, while only half of FGCU students polled answered correctly. For how concerned students were about climate change both groups had over half from concerned or extremely concerned. Only about ten percent or lower of each of the groups were not concerned at all. Of all the students polled in both groups over 80% thought that humans were one of the largest contributing factor to climate change. One of the last things that I want to touch on is the question that we had on sources of information on climate change. I was impressed that over 50% of college students were getting it from teachers and other sources such as research. I was a little concerned that high school students put their leader of information being media with 58%. This concerned me because the media can change fact and images to what they are trying to portray. Over all I thought that FGCU students did well on the survey and that do to the concern I have about the media as a primary source for high school students I think that FGCU services as a good example for not only other colleges but possibly other types of schools in the area.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Summary for Education ( Yesenia Garcia)

I have to say that I am very pleased with the results I was able to obtain in my global warming education project. Students didn’t only seem interested but I felt like I was really able to make a connection with the senior and juniors at Gulf Coast High School.After I played the video I was able to see that not only had I been able to make an impact in these student’s lives but I had grown a special interest in them. Some students would continue to look at each other and say small comments like “unbelievable,” what I even found most interesting was their viewpoints. I guess I also have to give credit to the new Hollywood film called “2012.” According to my research the film references Mayanism, the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, and the 2012 phenomenon in its portrayal of cataclysmic events unfolding in the year 2012. Due to solar flare bombardment the Earth's core begins heating up at an unprecedented rate, eventually causing crustal displacement. This results in an onslaught of Doomsday event scenarios plunging the world into chaos, ranging from California falling into the Pacific Ocean, the eruption of the Yellowstone National Park caldera, massive earthquakes, and Megatsunami impacts along every coast line on the Earth. The film centers around an ensemble cast of characters as they narrowly escape multiple catastrophes in an effort to reach ships in the Himalayas, along with scientists and governments of the world who are attempting to save as many lives as they can before the disasters ensue. While conducting my presentation, students would continuously go back to the film and tell me parts that resembled what I was trying to explain to them about greenhouse gasses. I felt like the timing for my presentation was perfect and that this film, even though in some areas a bit fictitious, really helped students understand the overall consequences and catastrophes that can relate to the entire global warming phenomenon.