EDUCATION
HIGHLIGHTS
From NASA Mission to Planet Earth Education
Program Update
--Nahid Khazenie,
rkannenb@pop900.gsfc.nasa.gov,
Managing Editor
1997 Discover Earth Workshop
Cool water, hot volcanoes, and insolation were some of
the themes explored during the second Discover Earth summer
workshop,
July 14-25, at the University
of Maryland at College Park. Fifteen elementary,
middle, and high school teachers from eight states were
joined by two NASA Aerospace Education Specialists
from the east and west coasts to spend two weeks
studying key issues of global climate change.
Discover Earth is sponsored by NASA's Office of Mission
to Planet Earth, and conducted by the
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in
collaboration with Eric Barron, Director of the Earth System
Science Center at the Pennsylvania State University,
and Robert Hudson, Chairman of the Department of Meteorology
at the University of Maryland at
College Park (UMD-CP). Additional instructors for
this summer's session were Satya Kalluri, UMD-CP-ecosystems;
Alan Robock, UMD-CP-volcanoes
and climate change; and Soroosh Sorooshian, University
of Arizona-hydrology.
The participating teachers represented an
exceptional and diverse range of experiences including from
one-to-thirty-three years of classroom teaching.
Highlights of their awards and honors include a
Presidential Honoree for Excellence in Secondary Science
Teaching, two teachers who have been honored as the
outstanding high school science teacher for their states,
one NASA Teacher-In-Space finalist, and the
Outstanding Earth Science Teacher for the Eastern Section of
the National Association of GeoScience Teachers.
Their expertise includes everything from astronomy
to zygotes. As a result of their workshop study of
the Earth as a system, volcanoes and climate change,
and ecosystems and surface hydrology, they have
developed five groups of classroom materials that bring
key issues of global climate change into the classroom
or can serve as the basis for student research projects.
The new materials will be available by the
beginning of October, either in hard copy or on-line at:
http://www.strategies.org. Classroom materials developed
by teachers during the 1996 workshop (clouds,
radiation, greenhouse gases, and ozone) are already
available via mail or at that Internet site. To request
project
information or hard copies of the classroom materials,
contact the Discover Earth Project Manager, Colleen Steele,
at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies,
2111 Wilson Blvd, Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22201, Phone:
(703) 875-8634; FAX: (703) 875-8635; e-mail:
colleen_steele@strategies.org.
NASA Educational Workshop (NEW)
NASA sponsored a pilot program this summer at Goddard
Space Flight Center (GSFC), called the
NASA Educational Workshop (NEW). Teams consisting
of five teachers each were invited through the
NASA Urban Initiative. The participating teams
represented Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, DC; and
New Jersey. The three teams spent six full days working
on the theme "Earth Systems" using the Global
Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment
(GLOBE) program measurements and learning activities as
a tool to understand and develop the theme. The
project began with the topic "Soils," illustrating
the system within a pond, forest, and field. Through
research programs such as NASA's Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the teachers also examined
the Sun's influence on the Earth's system. GSFC
will support these urban teams throughout the school
year with additional training and MTPE materials;
participant will reinforce connections by continuing to
report
GLOBE measurements and learning about other space science
topics
that show the impact of the Sun on the Earth's systems. For
more
information, contact: Elaine Lewis, Education Specialist,
GSFC
Education Office, e-mail:
elewis@pop100.gsfc.nasa.gov.
S'COOL Project
Classroom teachers can sign up now to participate in the
third
phase of the development of the Students' Cloud Observations
On-Line (S'COOL) Project. S'COOL is a component of the
clouds
and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) research
program
within MTPE. Selected classes will make basic weather and
cloud
observations for a week during October and report them to
the
NASA Langley Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC). After
the launch of the first CERES instrument this fall, the
project
will be open to all interested teachers. Students'
observations
will be used to validate the CERES algorithms and will be
available
via the Internet, along with selected satellite data, for
use
in the classroom. There is no fee to participate, and
additional
information is available at
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL/
or by sending an e-mail to
scool@larc.nasa.gov
Student Scientists Participate in NASA Ames Research
Center
Experiment
an unusual educational activity is taking place in the San
Francisco
Bay. Each week, students and educators at the Marine Science
Institute (MSI) collect samples of the Bay water, and high
school
students analyze the samples for UV-absorbing pigments in
Lynn
Rothschild's lab at NASA's Ames research Center (ARC). The
purpose
of this collaboration is to assess natural annual
variability
in UV radiation and its effect on the phytoplankton in this
important
mid-latitude estuary. The students learn about global change
issues while participating in an on-going scientific
experiment.
This summer Judy McCurdy, a middle school biology teacher in
San Ramon, California, started developing both on-ship and
classroom
exercises associated with this project, which will extend
the
excitement and educational value of this work for both the
participating
students and any student world-wide with access to the Web.
This
work was presented by karen Grimmer, of MSI, and Rothschild,
NASA ARC, at the California and the World Oceans '97
Convention
in San Diego, April 1997. For more information, please
contact:
Lynn J. Rothschild, e-mail:
lrothschild@mail.arc.nasa.gov. The URL for MSI is
http://www. sfbaymsi.org/
RESOURCES ON THE INTERNET
AGU Report on Undergraduate Earth Science Education
http://www.agu.org
The report of the American Geophysical
Union/Keck Geology Consortium Workshop on
undergraduate Earth science education is available in hard
copy
and on the AGU web site. The report "Shaping the
Future of Undergraduate Earth Science Education:
Innovation and Change Using an Earth System Approach"
is from a workshop held at AGU last November. It
is available at http://www.agu.org, under the
Science and Society section of the Web site.
El Niño Watch from Space
http://airsea-www.jpl.nasa.gov/ENSO/welcome.html
This JPL home page provides updated information
on NASA's contribution in monitoring the evolution of
El-Niño and its climatic consequences. Sections
include:
A Brief Explanation [of El Niño]; Current Analysis;
El Niño Movies; and related links.
Digital Versions of "Geomorphology from
Space" Now Available
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Data Distribution
Lab (Mike Martin and Cyndi Hall-Atkinson) and the
GSFC DAAC (Linda McNeely), and Nick Short, Sr.
have produced digital versions of the NASA Special
Publication SP-486, "Geomorphology from Space: A
Global Overview of Regional Landforms." This
publication has been widely used in college geology classes,
but
is now out of print and difficult to obtain. To make
the publication available, JPL has produced a
CD-ROM version of the document, using Adobe Acrobat
PDF format, and the GSFC DAAC is preparing a WWW version.
"Geomorphology from Space: A Global Overview
of Regional Landforms," published in 1986,
discusses various Earth and planetary landforms and
landscapes, including their description,
classification, origin, and development, illustrated with a
rich collection of space images. The book contains
237 plates, each treating some geographic region where
a particular landform is exemplified. The CD
targets high school and college Earth science
education audiences.
The WWW version is available at:
http://daac.gsfc. nasa.gov. From there, click on the
"Education"
icon and then proceed to the "Geomorphology from
Space" Web link. As of August 1997, half of the book is
available at this WWW site; the complete document
is planned to be ready by December 1997.
To place an order for the free CD click the
"multimedia" button on the following page and
proceed to the "Geomorphology from Space"
announcement:
http://stargate.jpl.gsfc.nasa.gov:1087/. This CD
is compatible with all computers that can read
Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF)
files. Currently 500 copies are available; 5000 copies will
be available by early winter.