HR: 09:30h
AN: OS21D-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Eliminating the OUCH in OUtreaCH
AU: * Karsten, J L
EM: jkarsten@agu.org
AF: American Geophysical Union, 2000 Florida Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009 United States
AU: Manduca, C A
EM: cmanduca@carleton.edu
AF: Carleton College, Science Education Resource Center, Northfield, MN 55057 United States
AB: ``I'm a scientist who knows how to conduct research, not an expert in teaching pre-college students!'' is a common complaint within the scientific community in response to recent funding agency mandates that research proposals explicitly address education, public outreach or other broader impacts. Yet, these new requirements address several important goals - fostering public support for research funding in the Earth and Space sciences, recruiting the next generation of talented geoscientists in the face of declining student enrollments, and educating the citizenry for informed decision making and advocacy, chief among them. Further, the phrase ``broader impacts'' is not meant to be synonymous with outreach to pre-college students and teachers - agency program managers actually encourage many different types of activity for meeting these obligations. AGU and its Committee on Education and Human Resources (CEHR) are committed to offering an array of programs that facilitate our members' ability to meet these new education, outreach, and broader impacts criteria in support of the research enterprise. CEHR has an on-going need for scientists willing to speak about their research in Geophysical Information for Teacher (GIFT) Workshops, sponsored lectures at annual and regional conventions of the National Science Teachers Association, special symposia for minority high school students attending annual AGU meetings, and career planning workshops for students and early career investigators. More extensive involvement as meeting mentors for minority undergraduate and graduate students is available through AGU's partnership with the new MSPHDS initiative (A. Pyrtle, P.I.). A new AGU outreach web site now under development will make available scientist biographies and abstracts derived from recent scientific articles originally published in AGU journals, which have been rewritten for a public audience. This resource is expected to serve as an important vehicle for AGU members looking to broadly disseminate their research results to the general public, students and teachers, but its success will require significant volunteer contributions in building and maintaining the quality of the collection. As volunteers for CEHR's activities and programs, AGU members can fulfill their broader impacts obligations without the sting of straying too far from their main mission of conducting scientific research. This is a win-win situation for all.
UR: http://www.agu.org/sci\_soc/educ.html
DE: 6605 Education
DE: 6630 Workforce
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting