HR: 16:42h
AN: ED14A-03    [Abstracts]
TI: The ERESE project: Bridging the gap between Digital Science Libraries and Education through Professional Development of Teachers and Database Development
AU: * Staudigel, H
EM: hstaudigel@ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225 United States
AU: Helly, M
AF: A.C. Moseley High School, 501 N Moseley Dr., Lynn Haven, Fl 32444 United States
AU: Helly, J
EM: jhelly@ucsd.edu
AF: San Diego Supercomputing Center, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093 United States
AU: Koppers, A
EM: akoppers@ucsd,edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225 United States
AU: Massel-Symons, C
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225 United States
AU: Miller, S
EM: spmiller@ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225 United States
AB: The ERESE (Enduring Resources in Earth Science Education) project involves a close collaboration between teachers, librarians, educators, data archive managers and scientists in Earth sciences and information technology, to create a digital library environment for Earth science education. We report here on an ongoing (NSF-NSDL) project involving teachers' professional development in the pedagogy of plate tectonics in middle and high schools. This work included efforts in scientific database development in terms of contents and search tools, the development of an inquiry based learning approach, a two week professional development workshop attended by 15 teachers from across the nation, a classroom implementation of lesson plans developed by the teachers at the workshop and an evaluation/validation process for the success of their pedagogic approaches. This ERESE project offers a novel path for both science teaching and professional outreach for scientists, and includes four key components: (1) A true, long-term research partnership between educators and scientists, guiding each other with respect to the authenticity of the science taught and the educational soundness of a scientists' elaborations on science concepts. (2) Expansion of existing scientific databases through the use of metadata that tie scientific materials to a particular expert level and teaching goal. (3) The design of interfaces that make data accessible to the educational community. (4) The use of an inquiry based teaching approach that integrates the scientist-educator collaboration and the data base developments. Our pedagogic approach includes the development of a central hypotheses by the student in response to an initial general orientation and presentation of a well chosen central provocative phenomenon by the teacher. Then, the student develops a research plan that is devoted to address this hypothesis through the use of the materials provided by a scientific database allowing a students prove or disprove their hypothesis and to explore the limits of the (current) understanding of a particular science question. Our first experience with this ERESE project involved a steep learning curve, but the initial results are very promising, providing true professional development for educators as well as for the scientists, whereby the former learn about new ways of teaching science and the latter learn to communicate with teachers.
DE: 0825 Teaching methods
DE: 0830 Teacher training
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting