Preparing Graduate Students to Address Research, Global Change, and Public Policy: An Experience

from SW Amazonia

I. Foster Brown, Woods Hole Research Center, Universidade Federal do Acre, fbrown@uol.com.br

Mary Catherine Silva Menton, University of Florida, University of Oxford, mcsmenton@gmail.com

Amazonia in PerspectiveInternational Science Conference

Manaus, AM, Brazil17November 2008

First LBA Education and Training Committee – lack of vision

• 1997 - Dreams of a LBA Program:– 31 Ph.D. 25 M.Sc. = 56 – Source: Preliminary Report of the Workshop on Training and Education of the

Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA). Manaus, 23-27 March 1997

• 2008 – In INPA’s library, linked to LBA: – 223 Ph.D. theses, 285 M.Sc theses = 508 – 108 in process of completion + 508 = 616 – source: http://lba.cptec.inpe.br/lba/site/?p=te_teses_dissertacoes&t=1

• We underestimated by a factor of 11.

Perspective – from the same 1997 Report

“...The year is 2010, seven years after the official end of the LBA program and thirteen years after the workshop meeting in Manaus outlined the specific goals of the training and education program for LBA. A group meets to evaluate whether the LBA program helped develop a vigorous scientific community in the Amazon and Cerrado. They recall the concerns of Cristovam Diniz, Dean of Research at the Federal University of Para in 1997: "Will the products of LBA further sustainable development of the region, or will LBA be just a transient phenomenon?“

We went beyond our expectations, but are we good enough?

Knowledge for decisions: data sets for trends on physical and biological conditions –

IPCC WG2 Summary 2007 Figure spm.1• Latin America –impact of

climate change:– 7% physical and <<1%

biological data sets of the globe, yet several of the most megadiverse countries – Amazonia.

– Need to expand greatly the studies – role of PPBio/GEOMA/LBA

• Other concerns:– 579 million persons and

growing, majority poor and young (220 million< 20 years-old).

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbagg

Need to develop quantitative skills and reasoning not only in graduate students, but

also in the general public. Following examples:

• From elective course on quantitative reasoning applied to the environmental sciences, Master’s program in Ecology and Natural Resource Management – Federal University of Acre (UFAC).

• From capacity-building of civil defense personnel, Public Ministry staff, municipal technical staff.

• Short-courses for undergraduate students in quantitative measurements.

• Elementary school teachers in rural municipalities.• Elementary school children and their parents.

Why such an emphasis on basic education?

• State of Acre: ~660,000 population: • 3-5% of Amazonia in size, population,

deforestation rate, deforested area, etc.

• Multiply Acre by 20-30 times to estimate the magnitude of what is happening in Amazonia.

Acre: managers of resources do not have graduate degrees but are going through the basic education system.

• Grades K-12: 260,000 matriculated in 2006, ~40% of the population (data - http://www.inep.gov.br/basica/encceja/).

• Grades 1-4: 100,000 or nearly 1 in 6 of the current population. 25,000 ‘graduating’/yr.

• Finishing high school: 10,000/yr.

• Graduating B.Sc. students in environmental sciences in Acre: ~100/yr.

• M.Sc. students in ecology and natural resource management in Acre: ~10/yr.

Too many challenges and too few people at higher education levels in Acre.

• 1 M.Sc. Ecology student for every 2,500 students from grades 1-4 per year or for every 1,000 students graduating from high school. Many do not complete high school.

• There is no solution for resource management in Acre without involvement of basic education, including grades 1-4.

Question:

How much that we are teaching in this graduate course on quantitative reasoning could be done in undergraduate, high school, middle school or elementary school, enabling more in society to

be able to use these intellectual tools?

Common response of graduate students: ½ to ¾ in middle school – high school – undergraduate

programs.

Conceptual approach used in capacity-building for quantitative reasoning.

I hear, I forgetI see, I rememberI do, I understandI discover, I use.

Modified Chinese aphorism – Werner and Bower (1991)

Example: Testing quantitative knowledge – value of Pi with toilet paper.

Can you reject the hypothesis that Pi = 2.718281, using a roll of toilet paper and no ruler?

Example: Discovering how to do order-of-magnitude measurements, basis for

deforestation and carbon stock estimates.

• How many hairs do you have on your head? (inspiration –Swartz 1973. Used Math)

• Learn to divide a large problem into two smaller ones:

– Area of scalp in cm2 number of hairs per cm2

Global Environmental Change perspective: learning to questioning quantitative

knowledge and concepts.

• The sum of the internal angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees. Throughout the universe or just on the earth’s surface?

• Answer: definitely not on the earth’s surface• Euclidean is not the only geometry.

ElementarySchool teachersEpitaciolandia,2006

Use of globe illustrates rapidly the finite area of the planet, the importance of the tropics as the global heat engine, why it is a pale blue, rather than brown dot in space, the limited land available, and that Euclidean

and spherical geometry are not the same.

Visits from State Environmental Secretary and Public Ministry representatives to discuss

science and environmental public policy in Acre State, as well as to outline what knowledge base

is needed.

Results of last graduate course in quantitative reasoning, Mar08. How does one measure improvements in reasoning?

Percent change in results between pre-course and post-course exam

More harm than good for 3 of 13?Yet all reported anomously that they benefited.

Children’s forest – Program for Natural Resource Management in Rural Basic Educational Systems, involves the parents as well.

Results in two years – falling behind.

• Graduate Course on Quantitative Reasoning – 2 years: 30 students. Liked course, but too short.

• Short courses on quantitative reasoning – 60 students and professionals. Brief introduction.

• Children’s forests Program in Assis Brasil - 440 students – variable success, need specific modules developed for quantitative reasoning and resource management.

• Those finishing 4th grade in Acre: ~50,000 in two years. Scaling ratio - >100: 1.

Conclusions• "Will the products of LBA[-PPBIO-GEOMA] further sustainable

development of the region...?” C. Diniz -1997.

• The answer depends in part on having more segments of the population able to analyze and incorporate these products.

• To do so will require a strengthening the quantitative analytical skills throughout the educational system, not only at the graduate level to generate the knowledge, but also in basic education to use the knowledge. And we need to do so quickly and at a large scale.

• Sound difficult, but then we tend to underestimate our capability by a factor of ten.

Thank you.

• Reference: Brown, I.F. 2008. Learning to Question: The Roles of Multiple Hypotheses, Successive Approximations, Balloons and Toilet Paper in University Science Programs of Southwestern Amazonia. J. Science Educ. And Tech. DOI 10.1007/s10956-008-9093-7