Case+Studies

=Case Studies in Science =

As a member of ESPRIT, http://www.salisbury.edu/esprit/project%20objectives.htm, I have been involved in developing case studies for teaching middle school science. For a case study, the best scenario starts with a real world problem, preferably local or one that would interest your students. A story is developed around the problem and your lessons are developed around solving the problem. Again the best case would be solving the problem using the inquiry method. Of course things don't always fit a best case, so sometimes the problem has to be contrived and the inquiry needs to be guided at least.

I teach 8th grade science in Wicomico, MD and one class of 9th grade Earth Science. Weather and hurricanes are part of the curriculum for both classes. in Maryland. At the beginning of 2008-2009, I chose hurricanes as the problem fro my first case since at the beginning of September of 2008 the east coast of the US was facing 3 potentially level 3 or better hurricanes, Fran, Ike and Josephine. The problem was: How and will the hurricanes develop and what will their path take, if you were the mayor a town in Florida, or New Orleans, or an island in the Caribbean, what precautions would you take to protect your citizenry from the oncoming storm. So then the students had to:
 * Research how hurricanes form
 * Using National Weather channels, determine conditions in the Atlantic basin
 * Using National Weather channels, obtain latitude and longitude, strength, projected path, speed of current hurricane
 * Plot movement of the hurricane on a hurricane plotting map
 * Research how to protect life and property during hurricanes
 * Predict projected path and possible damage from the coming storm for your area
 * Create an informational bulletin for citizens as the hurricane nears
 * Make a decision as to if and when you evacuate your area

This was a perfect example of real world teaching. Each day we logged onto Weather.com, found current conditions updated every 3 hours, plotted movement of the hurricane, researched hurricane formation and appropriate action. Students finished with either a presentation or photostory of those 3 weeks in September 2008 Atlantic Basin Hurricane season.

Below are some other examples of case studies for you to use in science:

= = You be the Astrophysicist: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/YBA/yba-intro.html

Coral Reef Study: http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/realdatalinks/realdata_coral.htm This site contains much info on coral reefs, including sea surface temperature relating coral reef bleaching. Wow, includes coral cams and time lapse movies of coral polyps.

The National Center for Case Study in Teaching: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/case.html - This site really has is all, it explains using case studies in teaching science much better than I, contains a fairly extensive list of case studies for science as well as links to other case study sites.