Educator's Workshop

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)

ESIP Teacher Workshop

Tuesday July 20th – 22nd Thursday July 22nd 2010 University of Tennessee School of Information Science

Tuesday July 20 8:30 - NOAA Climate Stewards meeting

10:00 – Break

10:30 - NOAA Climate Stewards meeting

Noon – Lunch

1:30 - Teacher Track Sessions Begin ESIP Overview - Brian Rogan (20 minutes)

1:50 - NOAA Weather and Climate Resources - Ron Gird This session will highlight NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) resources and education material, specifically the JetStream Online School for Weather, the “Xtreme Weather” CD for middle schools and the new “Sky Watcher Chart” for grades K-12 and the general public and a peek into NWS-2020 and their role in "ecological forecasting”.

3:00 – Break

3:30 - Climate Literacy Ambassadors - Steve Ackerman & Margaret Mooney This session will feature activities and resources from an on-line course on Global and Regional Climate Change (http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/climatechange/) created to clarify concepts and graphs from the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policy Makers. After a short presentation, participants will work through one or two activities including a statistics exercise utilizing ice-on/ ice off data from Madison Wisconsin. G6-12 science teachers will then be invited to join a NASA Global Climate Change Educator project called Climate Literacy Ambassadors where they can take the on-line course in October and receive stipends and become ambassadors of climate literacy in their local schools and communities.

5:00 – adjourn

Wednesday July 21

8:30 – ESIP Conference Opening Welcome

9:00 - Plenary Speaker 1

9:45 - Break

10:15 - Plenary Speaker 2

11:00 - Plenary Speaker 3

11:45 - Lunch

1:15 – NASA Earth Observatory - Kevin Ward Take a guided tour of NASA’s Earth Observatory featuring images, stories, and discoveries about climate and the environment from NASA research and satellite missions.

NOAA Climate Portal & Climate Watch Magazine - LuAnn Dahlman This session will showcase climate.gov, NOAA’s emerging go-to site for climate information and data. You’ll see NOAA’s recently launched ClimateWatch magazine and a presentation on calculating climate from weather.

2:45 Break


3:15 DOE/ORNL Educators Resources - Linda Holmes The presentation will focus on resources available through Oak Ridge Associated Universities and the Department of Energy as well as through Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the rest of the DOE national laboratory system. Teachers will also have a chance to discuss their needs in the energy education arena.

EPA Resources for Educators - Ethan McMahon & Lee Pera This session will feature an overview of EPA's resources for educators with some specifics about the Teacher's Guide to EPA's Report on the Environment Highlights Document. Draft of the new Teacher's Guide will be distributed for comment.



Thursday July 22

MORNING Concurrent hands-on activity sessions - teachers will choose three of the following 90 minute interactive, hands-on data sessions: (sign up for 2 on Wednesday)

1) Sampling the Sea - Bruce Caron Sampling the Sea will build a foundation for solutions using online collaborative technologies to create awareness among students about the need to preserve ocean resources. A multi-disciplinary team from UC Santa Barbara, in partnership with Google Earth, NASA Globe, and ePals, will reach 200 classrooms and 3,500 students from multiple countries. By integrating social networks of students/teachers collecting data, images, and stories about seafood in their local communities with interactive, animated displays of scientific content about trends in fisheries and ocean species in Google Earth, students will learn about sustainable seafood choices and effects of human actions on the ocean. By “Sampling the Sea,” students will actively participate in research, contribute knowledge, and foster a global discussion of how the oceans are changing, how our choices drive those changes, and possible solutions.

2) Discovering Earth Science Data and Services Using NASA's Global Change Master Directory (GCMD): The Value for Earth Science Teachers Tyler Stevens (Data Services Coordinator, NASA's Global Change Master Directory)

NASA's Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) enables users to discover and access Earth science data sets and data services relevant to global change and Earth science research. Data Services allow users of data to find tools to manipulate and manage Earth science data. Teachers can use the directory to find and access Earth science services that contain curriculum support materials and interactive programs to educate students about Earth science and climate change. In this session, teachers will also learn how to use our metadata authoring tool for describing educational resources. If you know of or have an educational resource that you would like to advertise, please bring it with you to the session. Visit the GCMD at http://gcmd.nasa.gov/.

3) Digital Earth Watch & Picture Post - Using Digital Cameras for Environmental Monitoring - John Pickle and Annette Schloss

Session Description: Environmental monitoring begins with a click of your digital camera and your commitment to place-based-learning. The Digital Earth Watch (DEW) Picture Post system is an easy-to-use and free set of tools for students, citizens and researchers to monitor change-over-time in a local environment. This place-based learning strategy uses repeated digital photographs to build a standardized set of images on our website (http://picturepost.unh.edu). You record the 360o landscape and the sky. Pictures contain a wealth of information that can be examined by learners of all ages - from simply recording events, such as the date of budburst, to analyzing features using digital image processing techniques and our free software. This session will demonstrate - if you have a digital camera, bring it along!

4) NEO - NASA Earth Observations - Kevin Ward

Session Description: NASA Earth Observations helps educator’s picture climate change and environmental changes happening on our home planet. NEO lets you search for and retrieve satellite images of Earth. Download them; export them to GoogleEarth and perform basic analysis. Tracking regional and global changes around the world just got easier! http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

NOON – Lunch

1:30 Lesson Plan Breakout sessions – two concurrent 90 minute seperate sessions (in two different rooms) to work on lessons plans - divided by regional teachers and NOAA Climate Stewards

3:00 Break

3:30 - wrap up, report out evaluations, paper work

5:00 - adjourn