HR: 0800h
AN: ED11D-1117 [Abstracts]
TI: A New Model for Building Digital Science Education Collections
AU: * Niepold, F
EM: frank.niepold@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA OGP Climate Education (UCAR), 1100 Wayne Ave., Suite 1215 D, Silver Spring, MD 20910
United States
AU: McCaffrey, M
EM: mark.mccaffrey@colorado.edu
AF: CIRES Education & Outreach: University of Colorado-Boulder, Campus Box 449, Boulder, CO 80309
United States
AU: Morrill, C
EM: morrill@cgd.ucar.edu
AF: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), 1850 Table Mesa Dr, Boulder, CO 80305
United States
AU: Ganse, J
EM: jack.ganse@bvsd.org
AF: Boulder Valley School District- Eldorado K-8 School, 3351 S Indiana, Superior, CO 80027
United States
AU: Weston, T
EM: westont@colorado.edu
AF: ATLAS Evaluation and Research: University of Colorado, 74 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309
United States
AB:
The Polar Regions play an integral role in how our Earth system operates. However, the Polar Regions are marginally studied
in the K-12 classroom in the United States. The International Polar Year's (IPY) coordinated campaign of polar
observations, research, and analysis that will be multidisciplinary in scope and international in participation offers a
powerful opportunity for K-12 classroom. The IPY's scientific objective to better understand the key roles of the Polar
Regions in global processes will allow students a window into the poles and this unique regions role in the Earth system.
IPY will produce careful, useful scientific information that will advance our understanding of the Polar Regions and their
connections to the rest of the globe. The IPY is an opportunity to inspire the next generation of very young Earth system
scientists. The IPY's draft education & outreach position paper asks a key question that must guide future educational
projects; "Why is the polar regions and polar research important to all people on earth?" In efforts to coordinate
educational activities and collaborate with international projects, United States national agencies, and other educational
initiatives, it is the purpose of this session to explore potential partnerships, while primarily recommending a model for
educational product development and review.
During such a large international science endeavor, numerous educational activities and opportunities are developed, but
these educational programs can suffer from too many unconnected options being available to teachers and students.
Additionally, activities often are incompatible with each other making classroom implementation unnecessarily complex and
prohibitively time consuming for teachers.
A newly develop educational activity collection technique developed for DLESE offers an effective model for IPY product gap
analysis and development. The Climate Change Collection developed as a pilot project for the Digital Library for Earth
System Education (DLESE Climate Change Collection, NSF Award Number 0435645) is a high-quality, annotated thematic
collection of 40 seminal digital resources that were identified and annotated by a review team of science experts and
educators, who examined digital resources for scientific accuracy, currency and usefulness to science educators. An
experiment in digital science education collection development, the effort brought together a community of experts through an
interdisciplinary review board supported by an extended network of climate scientists and educational researchers,
developers, and practitioners. This work produced and refined a protocol for collection building that can be transferred to
the IPY education effort.
Time will be given to discussions and potential collaborations.
UR: http://serc.carleton.edu/climatechange/
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005