HR: 15:45h
AN: ED13F-06    [Abstracts]
TI: Engaging Students in Earthquake Science
AU: * Cooper, I E
EM: icooper@usc.edu
AF: Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California 3651 Trousdale Parkway, Suite 169, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0742 United States
AU: Benthien, M
EM: benthien@usc.edu
AF: Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California 3651 Trousdale Parkway, Suite 169, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0742 United States
AB: The Southern California Earthquake Center Communication, Education, and Outreach program (SCEC CEO) has been collaborating with the University of Southern California (USC) Joint Education Project (JEP) and the Education Consortium of Central Los Angeles (ECCLA) to work directly with the teachers and schools in the local community around USC. The community surrounding USC is 57 % Hispanic (US Census, 2000) and 21% African American (US Census, 2000). Through the partnership with ECCLA SCEC has created a three week enrichment intersession program, targeting disadvantaged students at the fourth/fifth grade level, dedicated entirely to earthquakes. SCEC builds partnerships with the intersession teachers, working together to actively engage the students in learning about earthquakes. SCEC provides a support system for the teachers, supplying them with the necessary content background as well as classroom manipulatives. SCEC goes into the classrooms with guest speakers and take the students out of the classroom on two field trips. There are four intersession programs each year. SCEC is also working with USC's Joint Education Project program. The JEP program has been recognized as one of the "oldest and best organized" Service-Learning programs in the country (TIME Magazine and the Princeton Review, 2000). Through this partnership SCEC is providing USC students with the necessary tools to go out to the local schools and teach students of all grade levels about earthquakes. SCEC works with the USC students to design engaging lesson plans that effectively convey content regarding earthquakes. USC students can check out hands-on/interactive materials to use in the classrooms from the SCEC Resource Library. In both these endeavors SCEC has expanded our outreach to the local community. SCEC is reaching over 200 minority children each year through our partnerships, and this number will increase as our programs grow.
UR: http://www.scec.org/education
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0815 Informal education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting