NEW EARTH SCIENCE PROGRAM TAKES AIM AT VIRGINIA TEACHER SHORTAGE

From: Media Relations

August 24, 2006

HARRISONBURG — A new undergraduate degree program at James Madison University could put a dent in a statewide shortage of high-school teachers of Earth science.

Beginning Monday, Aug. 28, when JMU begins its fall semester, the department of geology and environmental science will offer courses in its new bachelor of arts in Earth science program. Students who complete the program, along with their training in secondary education, will be certified to step into a classroom and begin teaching Earth science.

Certifying teachers to teach Earth science has become a top priority in Virginia since the state started implementing requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law, said Eric Rhoades, secondary science coordinator for the Virginia Department of Education. The federal law requires high-school teachers to have at least a bachelor's degree in the subject they teach.

Until this fall, however, Earth science-degree programs didn't exist in Virginia. JMU and George Mason University both are offering a bachelor's degree in Earth science for the first time this academic year.

Virginia put significant dollars into grants for science teachers to get "add-on endorsements" to the degrees they already have to meet the certification requirements. Teachers who have biology, chemistry or physics degrees, for example, still need 18 hours in the geological and Earth sciences to become certified to teach Earth science. Among courses they must complete are oceanography, meteorology and astronomy. While Earth science is not a required course in Virginia high schools, Rhoades said a significant number of students take it.

Over the past several years, JMU has been one of six state universities offering working teachers the courses they need to get the add-on Earth science endorsement. Now, aspiring Earth-science teachers can come to JMU and meet the requirements by earning the new degree.

"We've come up with a very clearly laid out set of courses that they will need to obtain a B.A. in Earth science," said JMU geology Associate Professor Eric Pyle.

Pyle and his colleague, geology Associate Professor Kristen St. John, spearheaded a move to create the Earth science degree at JMU by restructuring the former bachelor of arts degree in geology; JMU still offers a bachelor of science degree in geology.

While the new B.A. program very closely matches Virginia Board of Education policies for preparing Earth science teachers, Pyle said it also will benefit students planning a variety of other careers, including law and public administration.

"They can have a solid science background and go on to law school or go into business or go into public administration. Imagine this, a public administrator who knows something about the environment that the town is in and what impacts are going to be seen as a result of certain decisions," he said.

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