Science teachers from all over Indiana watched as Koong Yi leaned hard into a T-shaped tree borer, pushing it farther into a large sugar maple at the Indiana University Research and Teaching Preserve.
The Ph.D. student in IU’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs was demonstrating how to take the core sample of a tree. The teachers collect their own samples to study the effect of drought years on the trees’ growth cycles. But Yi’s sugar maple was stubborn.
“I encourage you to pick a smaller tree,” he grunted as he twisted the bore, and the assembled teachers laughed.
The teachers visited the preserve for WonderLab’s Summer Science Institute, a three-day event to help develop hands-on, engaging science lessons for middle and high school students. The local science and education museum has hosted similar institutes in the past, and this year partnered with the IU Grand Challenges to focus, specifically, on the changing climate.
Environmental change was identified as one of the biggest upcoming threats to Hoosiers. Rising temperatures, increased rainfall and extreme weather events affect everything from crops to the durability of roads and bridges. Indiana could lose tens of millions of dollars to damaged infrastructure if Hoosiers don’t adapt to environmental changes, according to a June study by the Midwest Economic Policy Institute.
IU Grand Challenges provided funding for the three-day institute, allowing the 20 accepted teachers to attend at no cost. Professors from Indiana University and instructors from WonderLab guided teachers through three main questions: How do we know the climate is changing, and that humans have caused the changes? What are the impacts and effects of environmental change? What do we need to do as teachers, students and citizens to prepare for the outcomes of environmental change?