Molly Schauffler

Address: 316 Bryand Global Sciences Center, University of Maine

Bio:

BS Botany, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1978)

MS Plant Science, University of Maine (1994) “Capture of road-salt aerosols in an acidic peatland in central Maine”.

PhD Plant Science, University of Maine (1998) “Persistence of coastal spruce refugia during the Holocene in northern New England, USA, detected by stand-scale pollen stratigraphies”

Postdoctoral research, Climate Change Institute: “Paleoecological history of forest disturbance in two upland watersheds in Acadia National Park”

NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology Education) (1999-2003): Using community-based environmental research as a tool for reforming science education in small communities in Maine.

Research Area:

Currently I conduct education research in overlapping areas of environmental science and mathematics education. I am particularly interested in understanding how middle and high school students (and teachers) work with data (the math part) to understand how environments are changing. What do students do when given a tabular data set? How do they think about variability? How do they decide how to summarize a data set, or which measure of center to use? How do students interpret time series data or a scatterplot showing correlation? How can teachers incorporate real data into science teaching so that students are motivated to investigate and understand the changes that are taking place around them?