HR: 0800h
AN: ED41B-0251    [Abstracts]
TI: The Benefits and Challenges of Education and Public Outreach Efforts Associated With Scientific Research Programs
AU: * Morrow, C A
EM: morrow@spacescience.org
AF: Space Science Institute, 4750 Walnut Street, Suite 205, Boulder, CO 80301 United States
AB: During the past decade or so, policies of funding agencies like NSF and NASA have resulted in a dramatic increase of education and public outreach (EPO) programs embedded in scientific research environments. From this phenomenon has risen increased scientist involvement in education & public outreach and a new genre of bridge-builders and leaders in science education--professionals we might call "scientist-educators" or "educator-scientists" (i.e. those who have been building educational capacity at scientific conferences like AGU). This paper summarizes the results of a small, pilot research project begun at the AGU Fall 2003 meeting in a session entitled Benefits & Challenges of Education & Public Outreach Programs Associated with Scientific Research Programs. The author was a co-convenor of the session with David Alexander, Jim Thieman, and Frank Ireton. It was the biggest education session out of 24 approved sessions--at the time the largest number ever for an AGU meeting. Our session's invitees and contributors were scientists and educator-scientists representing multiple AGU space and Earth science disciplines, and including a mix of large, medium, and small EPO programs and projects. The session's presenters and participants were surveyed for their top three benefits and top three challenges in scientist-educator partnerships. During the past year these data have been augmented by contributions from scientists and educators in a 1-day COSEE workshop at Rutgers University and by an open discussion at the AGU Spring 2004 meeting in Montreal. The summary of these results will be a part of a larger set of papers and resources intended to support the integration of exemplary EPO programs with scientific research programs and to provide advice to the novice EPO lead.
DE: 0800 EDUCATION
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting