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Barnard
College's Brownfield Action Curriculum to be Adopted
by Connecticut College
 New
York, NY (March 31, 2004)— Brownfield Action,
the innovative curriculum developed by Barnard environmental
scientist Peter Bower, will be introduced at a second liberal
arts college, Connecticut College, with support from the National
Science Foundation, which has awarded a $75,000 "proof-of-concept"
grant to expand the program.
The program,
developed by Bower in cooperation with the Columbia Center
for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL), will be adapted
to upper-level environmental science and geophysics studies
courses at Connecticut College. The web-based, two-week interactive
feature will introduce students to the Brownfield Action
interface, history, and to the assignment. Students will have
web access to the program in residence halls, computer centers,
and the library. Professor Doug Thompson, who attended a seminar
at Barnard for faculty development and dissemination of Brownfield
Action last year, will integrate the program at Connecticut
College to their existing curriculum. Bower and CCNMTL will
provide overall management and support for this pilot program.
"The NSF grant will help us to test the effectiveness
of this innovative pedagogy at another liberal arts college.
At Connecticut College, the Brownfield Action module
will allow the upper-level science students to use this web-based
simulation of a real-life groundwater investigation. Our goal
is to disseminate Brownfield Action, or parts of it,
at other colleges, high schools, and even offer it for governmental
and business uses," said Bower.
Brownfield
Action, developed and launched by Bower in 1999, is a
multimedia model for teaching introductory environmental science.
Students work in teams and compete against each other using
an interactive computer program, in which they act as environmental
consultants to assess a simulated contaminated site. The curriculum,
along with the simulation and lab exercises, integrates contemporary
readings such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and
Jonathan Harr's Civil Action. Students gain a working
knowledge of principles of geology, environmental science,
physics, and biology, as well as historical, legal and political
knowledge gained in the classroom.
If the
Connecticut College pilot program is successful, Bower said,
the Brownfield Action project will be considered for
additional NSF funding to help promote a major distribution
and development of the program to other schools and institutions.
"The
NSF proof-of-concept funding will allow Barnard and CCNMTL
to begin the process of taking what has been a very successful
Barnard/CCNMTL project and make it available to all interested
in enhancing the teaching of environmental science,"
said Frank Moretti, Executive Director of CCNMTL.
A Brownfield
Action website is also under development, according to
Bower. The site will be utilized to further promote the curriculum
and its associated course materials, and will be used as an
information vehicle for the pilot program at Connecticut College.
Brownfield
Action was recently selected for the Science for New Civic
Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) program as a national
model for science education by the Association of American
Colleges and Universities.
***
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Petra Tuomi, Public Affairs, 212-854-7907
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