Building Strong Geoscience Departments Visiting Workshop Program

From our executive director, Cathryn Manduca:

Building Strong Geoscience Departments Visiting Workshop Program
Application Deadline, November 16

Greetings colleagues--

It is not too late to bring the Building Strong Geoscience Departments program to your campus. Would you like to know more about how other departments are facing today's challenges by building a stronger profile for their department, addressing assessment, redesigning curricula, or recruiting students? The Building Strong Geoscience Department visiting workshop program can bring this information to you. Visiting workshops involve one or two days of programming led by a team of two geoscientists drawn from our national program . The workshop program will feature concrete examples drawn from the leaders' experience and from the collective experiences of the geoscience community, and will provide online resources for further information.

Funds are available for five institutions to take advantage of this program -- the application deadline is November 16. The project pays for leader travel and stipends, the local host is responsible for local accommodations.

For more information about the workshops, see
http://serc.carleton.edu/departments/visitingworkshops/index.html

To have a Visiting Workshop come to your department, apply online by Monday, November 16:
http://serc.carleton.edu/departments/visitingworkshops/application.html

We hope this looks like an exciting opportunity to you!

Cathy Manduca, Heather Macdonald, Geoff Feiss, Randy Richardson, Carol Ormand

Cathryn A Manduca
Director, Science Education Resource Center
Executive Director, National Association of Geoscience Teachers
Carleton College
1 N College Street
Northfield, MN 55057
507 222 7096
cmanduca@carleton.edu
serc.carleton.edu

Note from NESTA (National Earth Science Teachers Association)

A note from Roberta Johnson at our sister organization NESTA (National Earth Science Teachers Association):

As you know, there is a crisis in Earth and Space Science education today in the US. NESTA is working hard to provide support for Earth and Space Science teachers across the country through our programs, communications, resources, and website, as well as through advocacy for Earth and Space Science education at the national level collaboration with partner organizations. Through these activities, we reach thousands of teachers across the country annually, and through them, hundreds of thousands of students.

As we approach the end of the year, we would like to encourage you to consider a donation to NESTA to help support our programs. As a non-profit and volunteer run 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, we work hard to keep our costs down, and avoid increases in membership fees - particularly in these difficult economic times. Please visit our donation campaign web page at http://www.nestanet.org/cms/content/support/donate, where we offer information about our need for financial support, and specific activities you might be interesting in supporting. Alternatively, you can go straight to our online donations form at http://www.nestanet.org/cms/content/support/donate/form to make your donation. If you would rather do this using a form that you can fill out and mail, you can find that form (and the mailing address for the form) at http://www.nestanet.org/cms/sites/default/files/documents/donation_form.pdf.

NESTA is excited to announce that the American Geophysical Union has agreed to match up to the first $10,000 of donations raised in this fund-raising campaign. This is a great way to double the impact of your donation! Your donation will go straight to NESTA, and will be used as you designate with your donation.

Thank you for your consideration!

Roberta

Light a Candle in the Darkness: Volunteering for Science in Your Community

Photo Source: Modesto Bee

(Posted originally at Geotripper)
Here in California, K-12 education is in pretty much a chaotic mess, and our children are being shortchanged in the worst way. Class size is growing, budgets are getting slashed, and some of our best teachers are being fired. These are bleak times, and our community college system is no better off. But I am proud of what my colleagues at Modesto Junior College are doing. You can read the story here, but in short we are bringing fifth graders onto our campus every other Friday to give them an experience in science and to introduce them to our college campus. Most of our division (biology, chemistry, physics and earth sciences) is volunteering to make the program a success. From the article:

About 60 students watched and performed experiments as part of MJC's Science Educational Encounters for Kids. Every second and fourth Friday of the month, fifth-graders converge on campus for a science lecture and then two 45-minute labs.

"We are drawing members of the community into the college. Some of these students maybe don't think college is a possibility, and we want to show them this is their community college," said Brian Sanders, dean of MJC's science, math and engineering division."Activities are a blend of fun and interest with real science," Sanders said.

"We're not just playing with bubbles. We're matching the labs with the state's fifth-grade science standards."

And...these kids are a lot of fun, too. Full of energy and enthusiasm! Contact me if you would like more info on how we set up the program (hayesg at mjc dot edu).

Far Western Section Spring Meeting: Tentative Announcement

Plans are afoot for the spring conference of the Far Western Section of the NAGT. The tentative plans call for a May meeting centered in Bishop, California, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. More information will be posted as it becomes available....

NAGT e-Newsletter out...

The latest issue of the e-Newsletter of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers is available here. This issue is loaded with great links to new teaching resources on the web. Check it out! The photo, from the newsletter, is by Ron Wirgart.

No Child Left Inside! Our National Parks (from Geotripper)

First published at Geotripper...

Long complex ramble today with four seemingly unrelated random thoughts. But they are...

• Devilstower, over at Dailykos.com, has a great post today about Little Giants , wondering what would happen if the estimated 5,000 to 7,000 tigers in the United States were all released at once.


• I had a great meeting with 60 fifth-graders in my lab this week, introducing them to the world of the geologist.


• I led a field studies class last week to the Cascades, studying the role of volcanism in three different national parks and monuments: Lassen Volcanic, Crater Lake and Lava Beds.


• Ken Burns and PBS are offering a six part documentary on "America's Best Idea", the story of the National Parks of America.

America's national parks are indeed one of the greatest ideas ever conceived by a society. The choice of overrunning a landscape and stripping it of resources to the point of ruination is a story that has been repeated over and over in human history. The idea that we might actually preserve a portion of our land in some condition approaching the primeval, for the benefit of all of its citizens, was an extraordinary leap that advanced civilization. If nothing else, the parks give us a focus point to understand how much we truly have changed our lands, and how far removed from our heritage we truly are. I am eagerly awaiting the Ken Burns documentary; the bits and pieces I've seen already are encouraging. Be sure to check it out.

My journey over the last week drove home the point of just how geological our national parks are. While acknowledging the historical nature of many parks in the system, such as Civil War battlefields and the like, most people think of places like Yosemite, Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon when they think of national parks. Although many people think of the national park experience as seeing wildlife, the bears, the moose, the buffalo, the deer and chipmunks, it is the rock that makes a place like the Grand Canyon or Yosemite Valley, it is the volcanism that has built the Hawaii Volcanoes, Haleakala, Rainier, Crater Lake, and Yellowstone, it is the movement of ice that sculpted the Grand Tetons, Glacier or the North Cascades. To truly understand a national park is to have an education, a true hands-on education, in geology. And yet: as Lee Alison of Arizona Geology points out, there are only 20 geologists employed in the Geologic Resources in the national park system, compared to 800 biologists.

The power of the national parks to move us is rooted in the common experience that many Americans have had while visiting our national parks, sometimes as adults, but especially as children. How many of us have that memory of playing in a river, camping out in the dark listening for the snuffling of bears, hiking a steep trail, or even conquering our first mountain? I remember as a young child climbing to the top of some small hill in Sequoia National Park on the Heather Lake trail, and giving it a name; I also remember the terror of being lost in a campground, having tried to find my own way to the bathroom in the dark as a five-year old. Terror at the time, and yet one of my most cherished memories, along with my first face to face meeting with a bear at Seqouia.

My visit with the fifth-graders this week was a startling reminder of something I already knew. Too many, way too many kids are not getting even a chance to experience their heritage as Americans. I live less than a two hour drive from one of the crown jewels of the national park system, Yosemite National Park, and almost none of these kids have been there! There are many reasons, of course, perfectly logical reasons. Even a twenty dollar entrance fee is too much for many struggling families, not to mention the cost of gasoline (we have 17% unemployment in our county right now). There is less and less of a cultural appreciation for simple forms of recreation: electronic games are very alluring to the short-term attention span of so many of our kids. And our kids, fed on a steady diet of junk food, and lacking any kind of exercise in their schools, just aren't healthy enough to appreciate hiking a trail or running away from a bear or snake.

And yet: these kids were excited just to see images of their national heritage. And I swear their eyes lit up when they came to the realization that these experiences were out there, and they could take part in them if they chose to. They could see an erupting volcano if they chose to. They could find a dinosaur bone in the ground. They want to see and experience these places, if we found a way to get them there.

It is we as a society who are robbing the youth of our country of their heritage. Every time we cut the budgets of our schools to the bare minimum of math and English classes, we take away the most valuable part of education. English is probably important, but what use is it if these kids have nothing to write about? An education is all about experience, not just knowledge.

And what about the Devilstower blog entry on little giants? In the last twelve thousand years, our continent has lost a huge part of our ecosystem: the megafauna. The North American continent once played host to mammoths, mastodons, giant elk, bison, camels, horses, sloths, and many other huge creatures. Most of them are gone, although, as Devilstower points out, some survived much longer by evolving into smaller forms (dwarf mammoths survived on the Channel Islands off California thousands of years longer than their bigger mainland relatives). What's left? The bison and elk and grizzly bears of places like Yellowstone National Park. For now, these creatures are managed as if they were in a zoo rather than part of an ecosystem, but there is a growing recognition that if we are going to choose to have these grand animals in our care, we have to see our land not as a few isolated protected havens like Yellowstone, but as a continuous habitat extending beyond park boundaries where these large animals and humans can coexist. It is a contentious topic to be sure: look at the controversy over the de-listing of the wolf from the Endangered Species Act.

One more note on the topic: this month's Accretionary Wedge, hosted by Tuff Cookie at Magma Cum Laude, is based on the following question: What kind of Earth Science outreach have you participated in? Have you hosted a geology day at your department, given a field trip, gone to your child's/niece's/nephew's/cousin's school to do a demonstration, or sponsored an event for Earth Science Week? To this I would add: You don't sponsor outreach? What do you plan on doing to change that?

Our pictures today? An Oak Tree in Yosemite Valley, and a black bear in Sequoia National Park. Something that every child should have a chance to see.

National Association of Geoscience Teachers: Fall Resources and Workshops

From Cathy Manduca, Executive Director, NAGT:

Greetings,

As the academic year gets underway, I am writing to call your attention to new online resources, workshops (for faculty and departments), and other upcoming opportunities. Happy Fall!

New Resources:

- The On the Cutting Edge website includes several new topical modules, about topics including Teaching about Energy, the Hurricane-Climate Connection, the Role of Metacognition in Teaching Geoscience (how an awareness of the learning process can dramatically improve learning), and Teaching Paleontology: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/index.html

- Our large collection of pedagogic resources on the Pedagogy in Action website includes six new modules, on ConcepTests, Jigsaws, Lecture Tutorials, Structured Academic Controversy, Teaching the Process of Science, and Teaching Urban Students. Each module includes an introduction to the pedagogic method, information on why it is effective, how to use it in your classroom, and examples of teaching activities using the method: http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/pedagogies.html

- The Building Strong Geoscience Departments website includes new and expanded resources, particularly related to Curriculum Development and Program Assessment: http://serc.carleton.edu/departments/index.html

Workshops for Individuals and Departments:

- The 2010 On the Cutting Edge Workshop series includes 5 face-to-face workshops, 4 virtual workshops, and 10 partnership workshops (offered in association with other meetings or organizations -- this includes the Follow-on Workshop on Teaching About Energy, to be held in conjunction with the GSA meeting in Portland, application deadline Sept 25): http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/workshops.html

- The Building Strong Geoscience Departments project is initiating a Visiting Workshop Program. Two of our leaders will come to your campus to deliver a workshop for your department, on topics we offer that are of high interest to you. There are two application deadlines Sept 16 and Nov 16: http://serc.carleton.edu/departments/visitingworkshops/index.html

Other Opportunities:

- Lead a Follow-On Workshop: Cutting Edge seeks proposals for one-half or one-day follow-on workshops on topics that have been offered through the "On the Cutting Edge" program in the past. If you would like to bring one of these workshops to a new audience, submit a request for proposal before the Sept 22 deadline: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/leadership/workshopRFP.html

- Propose a Cutting Edge workshop topic: Cutting Edge is seeking recommendations for workshop topics, submit your ideas before Oct 30 : http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/topic.html

Cathryn A Manduca
Director, Science Education Resource Center
Executive Director, National Association of Geoscience Teachers
Carleton College
1 N College Street
Northfield, MN 55057
507 222 7096
E-mail
serc.carleton.edu