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A primary challenge of
inquiry-based teaching is to "hook" students on an exploratory
quest. Because children and adults view the world in radically
different ways, questions that are intriguing to one group may be
boring to the other.
Our theme is Ecosystem Health
and Sustainability, which we define as the impact of humans on the
functioning of ecosystems (Ecosystem Health) and the means by which
negative impacts can be mitigated (Ecosystem Sustainability).
We propose this particular
"hook" for many reasons:
(1) Most children are inherently interested
in nature and the environment
(2) The environment is easily
accessible and children interact with it daily
(3) Environmental
issues such as air and water quality are frequently brought to the
attention of students and parents via local, national, and
international news -- they have both immediate and global relevance
(4) Human impacts on the environment are easily studied, yet
enormously complex
(5) Ecosystem Health and Sustainability offers
an easily identified theme, while simultaneously being broad enough
to include practically all fields of science and engineering.
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