In the project entitled "The GLOBE Program 2010: Collaborative Environmental Research at Local to Global Scales," the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) will improve the functionality of the GLOBE Program by providing: (1) new methods, tools, and services to enhance GLOBE Partner and teacher abilities to facilitate inquiry-based learning and student research, (2) initial pilot testing and assessment of student and teacher learning activities and events related to Climate Science research, (3) improvements in GLOBE's technology infrastructure and data systems (e.g. database, social networking, information management) to support collaborations between students, scientists, and teachers, and (4) development of a robust evaluation plan. In addition, the UCAR will continue to provide support to the worldwide GLOBE community, as well as program management and timely communication with program sponsors.
The Dynamic Earth: You Have To See it To Believe It is a public exhibition and suite of programming designed to educate and excite K-8 students, teachers, and families about weather and climate science, plate tectonics, erosion, and stream formation. The Dynamic Earth program draws attention to the importance of large-scale earth processes and the human impacts on these processes, utilizing real artifacts, hands-on models, and NASA earth imagery and data. The program includes the exhibition, student workshops, family workshops, annual professional development opportunities for classroom teachers, innovative theater shows, lectures for adults by visiting scientists, and interpretive activities. The Montshire Museum of Science has partnered with Chabot Space and Science Center (CA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (NH) on various components. The project has broadened our internal capacity for providing quality earth science programming by greatly expanding our program titles and allowing us to create hands-on materials for use by our educators and to loan to schools in our Partnership Initiative. Programming developed during the grant period continues to reach thousands of students and teachers each year, both on-site and as part of our rural outreach efforts.
Climate Change: NASA’s Eyes on the Arctic is a multi-disciplinary outreach program built around a partnership targeted at k-12 students, teachers and communities. Utilizing the strengths of three main educational outreach institutions in Alaska, the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska partnered with the University of Alaska Museum of the North, the Anchorage Museum and UAF researchers to build a strategic and long lasting partnership between STEM formal and informal education providers to promote STEM literacy and awareness of NASA’s mission. Specific Goals of the project include: 1) Engaging and inspiring the public through presentation of relevant, compelling stories of research and adventure in the Arctic; 2) strengthening the pipeline of k-12 students into STEM careers, particularly those from underserved groups; 3) increasing interest in science among children and their parents; 4) increasing awareness of NASA’s role in climate change research; and 5) strengthening connections between UAF researchers, rural Alaska, and Alaska’s informal science education institutions. Each institution chose communities with whom they had prior relationships and/or made logistical sense. Through discussions analyzing partner strengths, tasks were divided; the Challenger Center taking on the role of k-12 curriculum development, the Museum of the North creating animations with data pulled from UAF research, to be shown on both in-house and traveling spherical display systems and the Anchorage Museum creating table top displays for use in community science nights. Each developed element was used while visiting the identified communities both in the classroom environment and during the community science nights.
The overarching purpose of the Climate Literacy Zoo Education Network is to develop and evaluate a new approach to climate change education that connects zoo visitors to polar animals currently endangered by climate change, leveraging the associative and affective pathways known to dominate decision-making. Utilizing a polar theme, the partnership brings together a strong multidisciplinary team that includes the Chicago Zoological Society of Brookfield, IL, leading a geographically distributed consortium of nine partners: Columbus Zoo & Aquarium, OH; Como Zoo & Conservatory, St. Paul, MN; Indianapolis Zoo, IN; Louisville Zoological Garden, KY; Oregon Zoo, Portland, OR; Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, PA; Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence, RI; Toledo Zoological Gardens, OH, and the organization Polar Bears International. The partnership leadership includes the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. The partnership is joined by experts in conservation psychology and an external advisory board. The primary stakeholders are the diverse 13 million annual visitors to the nine partner zoos. Additional stakeholders include zoo docents, interpreters and educators, as well as the partnership technical team in the fields of learning innovations, technological tools, research review and education practice. The core goals of the planning phase are to a) develop and extend the strong multidisciplinary partnership, b) conduct research needed to understand the preconceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and learning modes of zoo visitors regarding climate change; and c) identify and prototype innovative learning environments and tools. Internal and external evaluations will be conducted by Facet Innovations of Seattle, WA. Activities to achieve these goals include assessments and stakeholder workshops to inventory potential resources at zoos; surveys of zoo visitors to examine demographic, socioeconomic, and technology access parameters of zoo visitors and their existing opinions; and initial development and testing of participatory, experiential activities and technological tools to facilitate learning about the complex system principles underlying the climate system. The long-term vision centers on the development of a network of U.S. zoos, in partnership with climate change domain scientists, learning scientists, conservation psychologists, and other stakeholders, serving as a sustainable infrastructure to investigate strategies designed to foster changes in public attitudes, understandings, and behavior surrounding climate change.
The Climate Change Toolkit includes a suite of resources that address the science behind climate change while encouraging participants to take action to reduce the effects of climate change. Each resource has been designed to be low cost and easy for educators to reproduce. Contents of the Toolkit include: (1) Ten Hands-on Cart Activities - These hands-on, cart-type science activities for families in an informal education setting or for children in an afterschool setting, engage participants with the science of climate change. The activities are divided into two categories, those that address the science behind climate change, and those that address how individual choices affect the rate of climate change. (2) Four Portable Self-Guided Exhibits Kits - These self-guided science kits use four hands-on activities per kit to explore how climate change is affecting the forest, ocean, urban, and atmosphere environments. Each kit can be packaged in a small bag or box and bundled together with an activity map box for check-out by families in an informal education setting. (3) Public Presentation - CO2 and You is a twenty-minute presentation that provides the option of using interactive clickers to introduce the science behind how fossil fuel consumption leads to climate change. The interactive presentation also explores how simple energy choices can have a positive effect on the climate. (4) Museum Field Trip Program - The Power the Future field trip uses an interactive diagram to explain how carbon based fossil fuels such as coal emit carbon dioxide and contribute to climate change. The program then discusses the need to transition away from carbon based energy sources such as fossil fuels to those that do not emit carbon dioxide, such as wind power. The second section of the program guides visitors through a hands-on inquiry activity where they explore their own windmills.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Charlie TrautmannKatie LevedahlAlberto López
Climate change science is becoming a more frequent and integral part of the middle school curriculum. This project, NASA Data in My Field Trip, proposes to leverage a regional network of Informal Science Institutions (ISIs) committed to climate change education, the Global Climate Change Consortium (GC3). This project will support climate change education in the formal curriculum by creating opportunities for inquiry-based exploration of NASA data and products in class and as part of already established field trip experiences to ISIs. The ISIs of the recently formed GC3 include a broad range of science-based institutions including Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH), Carnegie Science Center (CSC), Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, National Aviary, and the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium. Partners, Pittsburgh Public Schools and Wilkinsburg School District have respectively 70 and 99% minority populations. NASA Data in My Field Trip will build innovative connections among NASA data and products, ISI resources and experiences, curriculum standards, and educators in formal and informal environments. It has three components: (1) joint professional development for formal and informal educators, (2) in-class pre-field trip data explorations, and (3) the integration of NASA resources into ISI field trip experiences. In the first phase of NASA Data in My Field Trip, CMNH and CSC will pilot NASA resources as central components of middle school climate change field trips as well as in pre-visit experiences. In the second phase, three other GC3 ISIs will tailor the pilot products to their climate change field trips. In both phases, formal and informal educators will participate in joint professional development. Alignment with the school districts' curriculum and formative evaluation is critical at all steps of this project and will guide and inform the implementation of the project through both phases. The success of the project will be measured in terms of (1) educators’ attitudes toward and ability to use NASA resources, (2) the effectiveness of in-class and field trip experiences for students, (3) the development of a community of practice among informal and formal educators, and (4) the adoption of NASA data and products into informal and formal programming outside of the project’s specified reach. Primary strengths of this project are that it brings NASA resources to underserved schools and includes ISIs that have a commitment to climate change education but have not previously connected with NASA or its resources. Techniques developed in this project will be tailored to a diversity of ISIs and can therefore serve as a replicable model for NASA products throughout the ISI field.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kerry HandronEllen McCallieJohn RadzilowiczPittsburgh Public SchoolsWilkinsburg School DistrictPittsburgh Zoo and PPG AquariumNational AviaryPhipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
TERC and the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts are partnering to create an energy monitoring and conservation afterschool program for approximately 5,500 girls ages 8-11 in eastern Massachusetts. The goals of the Girls Energy Conservation Corps (GECCo) project are to involve girls in learning and applying science, using technology, developing leadership and communication skills, educating peers, saving energy, and addressing the global issue of climate change. The project is (1) developing activity-based Guides to help girls understand, monitor, and reduce energy use, (2) understand the connection between their own energy consumption and climate change, and (3) setting goals to cumulatively reduce their energy consumption.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gillian PuttickJoan ReillyBrian DraytonKatherine LeLacheur