02-13-2013 Education telecon

Agenda

Welcome & Introductions
Election of Committee Vice Chair
Setting the tone for the year
- ESIP Summer Meeting Opportunities
- About NESTA & NSTA Opportunities
- Re-starting the Climate Change Education Working Group
Other Business

Meeting Notes

Participants: Preston Lewis (NASA Langley), Erin Robinson (Foundation for Earth Science), Carol Meyer (Foundation for Earth Science), Denise Hills (Geologic Survey of Alabama), Roberta Johnson (SUNY @ Albany; NESTA), LuAnn Dahlman (NOAA/Climate Program Office), Bruce Caron (New Media Studio), Margaret Mooney (University of Wisconsin, Madison/CIMSS), Patricia Reiff (Rice University), Alan Gould (Global Systems Science project/Berkeley), Bob Downs (CIESIN/Columbia University), Paul Arvedson (Satellite Educators' Association)

1. Welcome & Introductions

Chair Roberta Johnson welcomed everyone and inquired about the results of the Doodle poll. It appears as if Tuesdays at 4:30 Eastern are workable for most everyone. Everyone was encouraged to participate in the poll which will inform a final selection date.

Introductions ensued for everyone on the call.

2. Election of Committee Vice Chair

The Chair ask for nominations from the Committee for Vice Chair. LuAnn Dahlman nominated Margaret Mooney to be Vice Chair. Without discussion, the Committee accepted the nomination without objection.

3. Setting the Tone for the Year

ESIP Summer Meeting Opportunities

Carol Meyer noted the Summer ESIP Meeting will be held July 9-12 at UNC Chapel Hill. The call for sessions will open on March 1. A special feature at this meeting will be an afternoon at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, where different platforms - Daily Planet, Immersive Theater, Visualization Lab - are available to participants to showcase their work. There is a general interest in education within ESIP but it has been hard to engage the broader community. There is interest in focusing a session on the Next Generation Science Standards, which will be data intensive and facilitating some interactions between teachers, learners, users and the data/IT provider community. The Teacher Workshop likely will run Tuesday-Thursday.

About NESTA & NSTA Opportunities

Roberta Johnson provided an overview of NESTA, the largest association of Earth science teachers (~1200 members). The members are very committed to teaching Earth science and are motivated to take advantage of available tools for use in their classrooms. NESTA has a peer reviewed journal. It is now affiliating with state level organizations. The teachers are highly engaged and are great sources of feedback and represent a user community. NESTA hosts events at NSTA but does not have its own conference at this time. NESTA will offer ESIP members resources at its sessions for anyone who is interested in providing them.

Denise Hills noted that she is involved with National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT), an organization that is more than K-12, primarily undergraduate education and teacher pre-service prep. Denise noted that NAGT might be good to connect with as well.

Re-starting the Climate Change Education Working Group

Margaret Mooney noted that the annual teacher workshop has a climate theme and is nominally under the Climate Change Education Working Group. Tamara Ledley (not on the call) expressed interest earlier about re-starting the group. In the past, the Technology Tools to Enhance Collaboration Workshop has been held at the winter meeting. Alan Gould noted that his (?) project is ending and would be interested in reporting out his findings from the project. It could be a session at the summer meeting.

4. Other Business

Patricia Reiff reported that Earth Update is in need of a rewrite due to OS upgrades. She inquired of the group if the product is valuable enough to do the upgrade. It was suggested that the product be made platform agnostic or to focus on newer platforms (e.g. mobile, web).
Patricia Reiff also offered her NSTA booth space as a place to distribute products from ESIP members.
Paula Arvedson noted that the Satellite Educators' Association reports on teacher activities related to satellite education and is looking for candidate lesson plans for sharing with that community.

The meeting adjourned at 3:04 pm.

Action Items

Outreach to NC Science Teachers
Flesh out NGSS session idea on wiki
Ask Tamara Ledley and others to share her vision about the future of the CCEWG