<p>Needs Assessment </p><p> What is my personal vision for my classroom? - Student lead and driven lessons - Group work being done with scaffolding - Students doing authentic research using computers - Students analyzing data using graphs and tables and creating an interesting way to share their data such as a video, PDA, poster - Using STEM to help analyze and disseminate the data - Students can have input in picking what they want to study  What are the realities faced in the classroom that may help or hinder my vision? - Access to computers - Changing schools schedule from 50 min to 90 min classes next year - Large Classes - Competing with standardized testing  What are realistic ways the experience can be shared with students? - Through journals, pictures, videos - Skype calls - PolarConnect - School News and webpage - District webpage and press release</p><p>Specific issues to address:  Three to five student needs related to specific curricula - Difference between sea ice and land ice o Which one adds to global water levels o Which freezes first, which stays frozen longer - Cryosphere o What is it? o Why is it important? - Arctic Environment o Geography o Importance of the polar region o What does cold really feel like and how does it affect the body o Types of animals and plants in the region - IceBridge and IceSAT missions o Explain the purpose of IceBridge o Explain why it is needed o What it does o Why is it important? - Differences between the Arctic and Antarctic o Ocean vs Continent o Humans living in Artic/ No humans on Antarctica o Antarctica is colder o Seasons  Three to five changes you would like to make to your teaching methods - While working in groups, organize my students according to jobs done on a research team - Administer lessons that are more student driven - Enable my students to work independently - Implement more alternate assessments such as projects and portfolios - Introduce additional technology resources  Three to five things you expect to learn during your experience - Difficulties faced while doing remote research - How to keep researching while enduring poor weather conditions and dealing with other factors outside of the scientists control - Learning about the different equipment used and how the data is then disseminated to others - A better understanding of the logistics that goes into planning an expedition  Three to five concepts you would like to teach “better” or differently - More student lead and driven lessons where the students analyze real data and interpret that data - Grouping students and making sure each member of the group knows their job and having the students work together on a presentation - Having more student centered work and less lecturing - Having students pick topics that interest them  Equity and expectations related to ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic, and differently-abled students - Interviewing female and male scientists, getting their backgrounds and finding out what made them want to be scientists - Finding scientists from all regions of the US/World and asking them about their experiences - Finding scientists from different cultures and interviewing them, showing my students that anyone can become a scientist - Go over opportunities offered by the school and other organizations for high school students interested in the field of science</p>