James Wandersee

The Effectiveness of Petrified Wood as a Geobiological Portal to Increase Public Understanding of Geologic Time, Fossilization, and Evolution

Petrified wood is ubiquitous, and is found in every US state and on every continent. Because of its abundance and intriguing nature, we hypothesized that fossilized wood might be an effective gateway through which important interdisciplinary scientific concepts could be taught. Our earliest investigations of in situ petrified wood at informal education sites revealed that petrified wood could spark public interest about its formation, and its seemingly paradoxical nature. Upon this original viewer interest, scientific content in chemical composition, fossilization processes, extinction events, evolutionary processes, and geologic time could then be scaffolded, in either informal or formal educational settings. In our first classroom investigations, we probed the effectiveness of petrified wood as a portal in college Earth History courses to address geologic age, fossilization processes, and fossil properties (Clary & Wandersee, 2007). Through classroom incorporation of petrified wood, instructors identified students’ alternative conceptions, and significant student gains in some scientific content were evident at the end of the semester. In a subsequent research investigation, students in a junior level Landscape Architecture design class were assigned a project in which they developed an informal educational space that conceptualized geologic time (Clary, Brzuszek, & Wandersee, 2009). Petrified wood was used to measure student gains in the understanding of geologic time, and data revealed that a threshold petrified wood conceptual knowledge was present in all successful design solutions. Through our research, we identified petrified wood as a potential geobiological portal to address public understanding of geologic time, identified by Stephen Jay Gould (1987) as one of the major scientific constructs of all time, paralleling evolutionary theory in its importance. Our latest petrified wood research focuses upon an earlier educational influence in our future citizens’ geological literacy. In this current study, we investigate primary and secondary teachers’ geobiological content knowledge of petrified wood, and probe potential investigative techniques for effective petrified wood study within K-12 classrooms. We also attempt to ascertain the role of science professional development programs for increasing teacher content knowledge in geologic time and fossilization processes.