부산대학교 도서관

The present study describes our development, incorporation, and assessment of student-driven, field-based, active-learning laboratory modules into a university Environmental Science curriculum. Our primary goal was to provide students with active, cooperative, collaborative, problem-based learning opportunities that could improve their understanding of the hypothesis-testing nature of science. Students were tested via a battery of questions preceding and then following exposure to field-based active-learning modules. Those answers were then compared against control populations (α = 0.01) that were not exposed to the learning modules. Results indicate that implementation of the modules improved the students' understanding of the scientific method and their ability to conduct science. Although a field-based laboratory approach to teaching environmental science was a more laborious and expensive process than the process used fr the control approach, the students' scientific proficiency was improved as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]