A study of the relationships among teacher inservice training, geographic residence, student knowledge acquisition, and student marine experiences in the evaluation of a marine science curriculum

Man and the Gulf of Mexico (MGM) was a federally-funded curriculum development project which produced a four-volume set of marine science curriculum materials for use by junior high and secondary school students in Alabama and Mississippi. Individual titles in the series are Marine and Estuarine Ecology, Marine Habitats, Diversity of Marine Animals, and Diversity of Marine Plants.;The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation of these materials by investigating the possible relationships among MGM-based inservice teacher training, geographic residence of students, marine science knowledge acquisition by students as measured by the "MGM Unit Achievement Tests", student evaluations of the MGM curriculum materials as measured by the "MGM Unit Evaluation Form", and student scores on the marine knowledge, and marine attitudes portions of the "Survey of Oceanic Attitudes and Knowledge" (SOAK). Additionally, the study was designed to document marine-related experiences of student participants as measured by the marine experiences section of the SOAK.;A total of 21 biology teachers, nine Alabama residents and 12 Mississippi residents, and their students ;Results of the study indicated that a significant...