Interdisciplinarity in Teacher Education: A mixed-methods study exploring prospective teachers' perceptions and experiences with interdisciplinarity.

This thesis takes a mixed-methods approach to hear how prospective teachers understand and experience interdisciplinarity in their teacher education. Interdisciplinarity is a resurgent phenomenon in education, with society demanding innovation to solve complex problems. In the recent Norwegian curriculum reform, LK20, three interdisciplinary themes have been introduced, expected to span the entire pedagogical discourse. This has been problematic, with a lack of thorough implementation in curriculum documents and teachers feeling uncertain. Prospective teachers have the opportunity to enter the profession with interdisciplinary integrative ability. However, in this study, prospective teachers report little experience with interdisciplinarity in university and while they meet more interdisciplinarity in praxis, there is a lack of authentic experiences and confident role models. Furthermore, the informants claim an increased focus on subject-specialization, a lack of program coherence and explicit didactics in their teacher education means they are unprepared for the forced interdisciplinarity required in schools. This thesis proposes a profession-oriented, generalist teacher education program with explicit focus on didactics and interdisciplinarity which aims to increase teacher preparedness, professional autonomy and program coherence. Denne oppgaven tar en mixed-methods tilnærming for å høre hvordan fremtidige lærere forstår og opplever tverrfaglighet i lærerutdanningen. Tverrfaglighet er et gjenoppstått fenomen i utdanning, der samfunnet krever innovasjon for å løse komplekse problemer. I den nyligste norske læreplanreformen, LK20, er det introdusert tre tverrfaglige temaer som forventes å gjennomsyre over hele den pedagogiske diskursen. Dette har vært problematisk, med manglende gjennomføring i læreplandokumentene og lærere har følt seg usikre. Potensielle lærere har mulighet til å gå inn i yrket med tverrfaglig integreringsevne. Men i dette studiet rapporterer fremtidige lærere lite erfaring med tverrfaglighet på universitetet og mens de møter oftere tverrfaglighet i praksis, mangler de autentiske tverrfaglig opplevelser og selvsikre rollemodeller. Videre hevder informantene økt fokus på fagspesialisering, manglende programsammenheng og eksplisitt didaktikk i lærerutdanningen gjør at de ikke er forberedt på den tvungne tverrfagligheten som kreves i skolen. Denne oppgaven foreslår et profesjonsrettet, "generalist" lærerutdanningsprogram med eksplisitt fokus på didaktikk og tverrfaglighet som har som mål å øke lærerberedskap, profesjonelle autonomi og programkoherens. Keywords: interdisciplinary, cross-curricular, tverrfaglig, teacher education, lærerutdanning, student perspective, interdisciplinarity, program coherence, integrative, LK20, interdisciplinary tertiary education, transformative, koherens, multidisciplinar

Planet Four: Terrains - Discovery of Araneiforms Outside of the South Polar Layered Deposits

We present the results of a systematic mapping of seasonally sculpted terrains on the South Polar region of Mars with the Planet Four: Terrains (P4T) online citizen science project. P4T enlists members of the general public to visually identify features in the publicly released Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter CTX images. In particular, P4T volunteers are asked to identify: 1) araneiforms (including features with a central pit and radiating channels known as 'spiders'); 2) erosional depressions, troughs, mesas, ridges, and quasi-circular pits characteristic of the South Polar Residual Cap (SPRC) which we collectively refer to as 'Swiss cheese terrain', and 3) craters. In this work we present the distributions of our high confidence classic spider araneiforms and Swiss cheese terrain identifications. We find no locations within our high confidence spider sample that also have confident Swiss cheese terrain identifications. Previously spiders were reported as being confined to the South Polar Layered Deposits (SPLD). Our work has provided the first identification of spiders at locations outside of the SPLD, confirmed with high resolution HiRISE imaging. We find araneiforms on the Amazonian and Hesperian polar units and the Early Noachian highland units, with 75% of the identified araneiform locations in our high confidence sample residing on the SPLD. With our current coverage, we cannot confirm whether these are the only geologic units conducive to araneiform formation on the Martian South Polar region. Our results are consistent with the current CO2 jet formation scenario with the process exploiting weaknesses in the surface below the seasonal CO2 ice sheet to carve araneiform channels into the regolith over many seasons. These new regions serve as additional probes of the conditions required for channel creation in the CO2 jet process. (Abridged)Comment: accepted to Icarus - Supplemental data files are available at https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mschwamb/planet-four-terrains/about/results - Icarus print version available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910351730055

The formation of gullies on Mars today

A decade of high-resolution monitoring has revealed extensive activity in fresh Martian gullies. Flows within the gullies are diverse: they can be relatively light, neutral or dark, colourful or bland, and range from superficial deposits to 10 m-scale topographic changes. We observed erosion and transport of material within gullies, new terraces, freshly eroded channel segments, migrating sinuous curves, channel abandonment, and lobate deposits. We also observed early stages of gully initiation, demonstrating that these processes are not merely modifying pre-existing land-forms. The timing of activity closely correlates with the presence of seasonal CO2 frost, so the current changes must be part of ongoing gully formation that is driven largely by its presence. We suggest that the cumulative effect of many flows erodes alcoves and channels, and builds lobate aprons, with no involvement of liquid water. Instead, flows may be fluidized by sublimation of entrained CO2 ice or other mechanisms. The frequent activity is likely to have erased any features dating from high-obliquity periods, so fresh gully geomorphology at middle and high latitudes is not evidence for past liquid water. CO2 ice-driven processes may have been important throughout Martian geological history and their deposits could exist in the rock record, perhaps resembling debris-flow sediments.Mars Data Analysis Program [NNH13AV85I]; Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE project12 month embargo; published 27 November 2017This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Planet Four: A Neural Network’s search for polar spring-time fans on Mars

Dark deposits visible from orbit appear in the Martian south polar region during the springtime. These are thought to form from explosive jets of carbon dioxide gas breaking through the thawing seasonal ice cap, carrying dust and dirt which is then deposited onto the ice as dark ‘blotches’, or blown by the surface winds into streaks or ‘fans’. We investigate machine learning (ML) methods for automatically identifying these seasonal features in High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) satellite imagery. We designed deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) that were trained and tested using the catalog generated by Planet Four, an online citizen science project mapping the south polar seasonal deposits. We validated the CNNs by comparing their results with those of ISODATA (Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Technique) clustering and as expected, the CNNs were significantly better at predicting the results found by Planet Four, in both the area of predicted seasonal deposits and in delineating their boundaries. We found neither the CNNs or ISODATA were suited to predicting the source point and directions of seasonal fans, which is a strength of the citizen science approach. The CNNs showed good agreement with Planet Four in cross-validation metrics and detected some seasonal deposits in the HiRISE images missed in the Planet Four catalog; the total area of seasonal deposits predicted by the CNNs was 27% larger than that of the Planet Four catalog, but this aspect varied considerably on a per-image basis

Seasonal southern circum-polar spots and araneiforms observed with the colour and stereo surface imaging system (CaSSIS)

The southern polar area of Mars is home to various seasonal activity commonly explained by the Kieffer model. During southern spring, the ice covering the polar area sublimates and leaves distinct features (spiders, spots, fans) observable from orbit. The Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), provides high-resolution multi-filter images of the Martian surface offering high sensitivity to colour contrasts. Its stereo capability is pivotal for momentary processes and offers a unique perspective for studying surface sublimation processes and their relation to atmospheric features. For the first time, we identify clouds well correlated with surface features (araneiforms and spots at southern circum-polar latitudes) hence motivating a new campaign to refine these observations over time periods where CO2 sublimation processes occur. We focus here on the structure of spot deposits and their evolution through time. We identify and describe seven structures: dark spot, bright-haloed spot, ringed spot, inverted spot, dark-haloed spot, banded spot, and bright spot. By morphological and spectral analyses, we hypothesize a new chronology of events that characterise the origin, formation and evolution of these features

The Holy Grail: A road map for unlocking the climate record stored within Mars' polar layered deposits

In its polar layered deposits (PLD), Mars possesses a record of its recent climate, analogous to terrestrial ice sheets containing climate records on Earth. Each PLD is greater than 2 ​km thick and contains thousands of layers, each containing information on the climatic and atmospheric state during its deposition, creating a climate archive. With detailed measurements of layer composition, it may be possible to extract age, accumulation rates, atmospheric conditions, and surface activity at the time of deposition, among other important parameters; gaining the information would allow us to “read” the climate record. Because Mars has fewer complicating factors than Earth (e.g. oceans, biology, and human-modified climate), the planet offers a unique opportunity to study the history of a terrestrial planet’s climate, which in turn can teach us about our own planet and the thousands of terrestrial exoplanets waiting to be discovered. During a two-part workshop, the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) hosted 38 Mars scientists and engineers who focused on determining the measurements needed to extract the climate record contained in the PLD. The group converged on four fundamental questions that must be answered with the goal of interpreting the climate record and finding its history based on the climate drivers. The group then proposed numerous measurements in order to answer these questions and detailed a sequence of missions and architecture to complete the measurements. In all, several missions are required, including an orbiter that can characterize the present climate and volatile reservoirs; a static reconnaissance lander capable of characterizing near surface atmospheric processes, annual accumulation, surface properties, and layer formation mechanism in the upper 50 ​cm of the PLD; a network of SmallSat landers focused on meteorology for ground truth of the low-altitude orbiter data; and finally, a second landed platform to access ~500 ​m of layers to measure layer variability through time. This mission architecture, with two landers, would meet the science goals and is designed to save costs compared to a single very capable landed mission. The rationale for this plan is presented below. In this paper we discuss numerous aspects, including our motivation, background of polar science, the climate science that drives polar layer formation, modeling of the atmosphere and climate to create hypotheses for what the layers mean, and terrestrial analogs to climatological studies. Finally, we present a list of measurements and missions required to answer the four major questions and read the climate record. 1. What are present and past fluxes of volatiles, dust, and other materials into and out of the polar regions? 2. How do orbital forcing and exchange with other reservoirs affect those fluxes? 3. What chemical and physical processes form and modify layers? 4. What is the timespan, completeness, and temporal resolution of the climate history recorded in the PLD

Planet Four: Probing springtime winds on Mars by mapping the southern polar CO2 jet deposits

The springtime sublimation process of Mars’ southern seasonal polar CO2 ice cap features dark fan-shaped de- posits appearing on the top of the thawing ice sheet. The fan material likely originates from the surface below the ice sheet, brought up via CO2 jets breaking through the seasonal ice cap. Once the dust and dirt is released into the atmosphere, the material may be blown by the surface winds into the dark streaks visible from orbit. The location, size and direction of these fans record a number of parameters important to quantifying seasonal winds and sublimation activity, the most important agent of geological change extant on Mars. We present results of a systematic mapping of these south polar seasonal fans with the Planet Four online citizen science project. Planet Four enlists the general public to map the shapes, directions, and sizes of the seasonal fans visible in orbital images. Over 80,000 volunteers have contributed to the Planet Four project, reviewing 221 images, from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera, taken in southern spring during Mars Years 29 and 30. We provide an overview of Planet Four and detail the processes of combining multiple volunteer assessments together to generate a high delity catalog of ∼ 400000 south polar seasonal fans. We present the results from analyzing the wind directions at several locations monitored by HiRISE over two Mars years, providing new insights into polar surface winds