Bonnie and Stephanie's Plan
From Education
SC07 Educator Plan of Action Name of Team Leader(s): Bonny Bracey-Sutton, Stephanie Stevenson Project: Learning About Computational Science through Environmental Modeling E-mail: Bbracey@aol.com stevensons@dreamsbeginhere.org Our goals for the next 6-12 months to build upon what you have learned during SC07 in Reno is to build an online curricular model using Tom March’s Working the Web for Education: Activity Formats we want to create a website that introduces learners to modeling and visualization using the global environment as the academic focus. Activity formats offer easy entry points for newcomers to the Net as well as more sophisticated activities for advanced users. The six formats also take into consideration and many of the promising learning practices suggested by a review of the literature. The chart below shows the six formats.
http://www.web-and-flow.com/help/formats.asp 1. We plan to adapt the website Stormy Weather* based on these strategies to create a web-based curriculum for Learning About Computational Science through Environmental Modeling. We are going to use a wiki environment so that this site is a living curriculum that the SC07 community, interested scientists and teachers can co-create a rich learning environment. The Wiki site is: http://scstevenson.wikispaces.com/Environmental+Science+Project
About Stormy Weather: Stormy Weather designed by Stephanie Stevenson for the Duval County Public Schools is no longer supported by the district website. Stephanie has been granted permission to use it for other educational purposes. The AT&T Knowledge Network: Blue Web'n awarded Stormy Weather five stars. Below is the Blue Web’n description of Stormy Weather
Stormy Weather Learn to use the Internet and software tools while doing atmosphere investigations for the middle school and high school, Earth/Space Science Classroom. All activities, especially the Weather Hunt, Storm Sampler and The Perfect Storm Webquest, are designed for use by cooperative groups and culminate in a final shared presentation. The Weather Hotlist and the Weather Scrapbook are easily adapted for use by individual students• What subject area(s) and/or classes will this benefit? • Science and Social Studies Our estimated timeline for getting the structure of the project on the web is about six months. 2) Attached is a list of environmental resources we have located to date, as the list grows they will be added to the wikispace. 3) Student learning outcomes will be assessed through the standards-based rubrics for the tasks in the activity format. 4) Our biggest challenges is time an collaboration with others. We hope that the SC Education community will join us to design a rich collaborative wiki-space that will enable educators to become users of computational science tools. 5) What assistance would you like to receive to help you accomplish your goals? Training, mentoring, and collaborations would be helpful. We need more training in environmental computational science and mentoring to create a meaningful computational science site that addresses the needs of novice through advanced users. 6) What plans do you have for sharing what you learn throughout the process with others? We will present at conferences and other educational venues and write about our site.
Environmental Resources • Live Weather https://portal.leadproject.org:443/gridsphere/gridsphere?cid=live_weather • • MetEd: K-12 and the Public Watersheds: Connecting Weather to the Environment (Middle School/High School) ... Last updated: 2007-01-19 Questions and Comments: info@comet.ucar.edu .. • NCAR's Climate Discovery Online Courses A Earth’s climate has evolved in remarkable ways since our planet’s origin. It also changes over shorter time periods in response to natural processes and human actions. These changes can impact our lives on a daily basis, now and in the future. Scientists draw upon many different, yet interrelated, fields of the geosciences as they strive to understand climate and global change. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is offering middle and high school teachers an opportunity to learn about the science of climate and how current research is advancing our understanding through, Climate Discovery, a series of three online workshops. • The Climate Discovery Teacher's Guide This teacher's guide was produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research as a companion to the Climate Discovery exhibit at our Boulder, Colorado laboratory. Each unit contains lessons appropriate for grades 5-9 on a variety of Earth system science topics that facilitate student learning about our planet's climate system. • About the Sun • A basic guide to all things solar, produced by the NCAR High Altitude Observatory APOL Biocomplexity Education APOL's Biocomplexity Project's education component was created by two Colorado high school teachers and two students. The materials were designed to serve the secondary education community in developing public understanding of climate change science and associated technologies. Visit this site to see their work in describing carbon's role in climate change, how APOL's laser spectrometer addresses important questions, and how this new laser system functions. The site also provides secondary level educational activities and many video interviews with scientists about the carbon cycle, climate change, and the APOL project that are appropriate for anyone interested in learning more on state-of-the-art research involving Earth's climate and carbon cycle. • Climate & Global Change Geoscience Education Workshop The goal of the workshop is to provide standards-relevant science content, training on easy to implement inquiry-based classroom activities, and a broad overview of the geosciences in the context of climate and global change to educator-leaders who are teaching sciences at the middle and high school levels. • Colorado Computational Science Fair High-school competition sponsored by NCAR and Colorado State University • DLESE: Digital Library for Earth System Education A grassroots, community-based effort involving teachers, students, and scientists working together to create a library of educational resources and services to support Earth system science education, at all levels, in both formal and informal settings. DLESE resources include electronic materials for both teachers and learners such as lesson plans, maps, images, data sets, visualizations, assessment activities, curriculum, online courses, and much more. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, DLESE is being designed, built, and governed by community members from around the country. • EXPLORE the Atmospheric Sciences Newsletter of informal science education of UCAR and NCAR • The GLOBE Program An exciting, worldwide, hands-on education and science program • Global Weather Services in 2025 A vision of future weather services • Greenie Environmental Stewardship Awards Awards recognize special Earth Day projects in the areas of recycling, composting, environmental education, energy, conservation, sustainability, and air and water quality • Hurricane Strike! A multimedia learning package created by COMET®, Hurricane Strike! is aimed primarily at middle school students. It integrates disaster safety and preparedness with science instruction, providing an engaging interactive learning environment. It also dovetails with science and safety content in the American Red Cross Masters of Disaster curriculum. • In a New Light: The Color of Weather and Climate (6.8 mb PDF) This 72-page booklet (in PDF format) is the handout for the popular workshop presented at NSTA by UCAR Education and Outreach staff. The booklet provides extensive background information and directions for all hands-on activities presented during the workshop. • Introduction to Fire Behavior This site provides an overview of factors that affect the ignition and spread of wildfires. Information is presented with 3-dimensional graphics and animations as well as audio descriptions and commentary provided by a fire behavior expert. You don't need an extensive background in fire science or weather forecasting to learn from this site. • LEARN: Atmospheric Science Explorers Enhancement program for science teachers Learning about Science Easily and Readily Series (LASERS) Lectures and brochures on atmospheric research topics Children of the Tropics: El Nino and La Nina Constant as the Sun? A Look at Solar Variability • Modeling in the Geosciences Workshop Environmental concerns are becoming increasingly pressing and complex, requiring citizens to have much better understanding of Earth systems and processes, and the methods scientists use to unravel this complexity to develop an understanding of the underlying systems. Models are an important tool used by scientists to study and better understand complex systems. To increase teacher understanding of models and their utility in Earth System Science studies, NASA’s Earth System Enterprise is sponsoring the Modeling in the Geosciences Workshop (MGW) for middle and high school teachers that will explore Earth System Modeling concepts that are relevant for classroom use. • NCAR Vislab Explore visualizations of NCAR computer models to learn how models are used to understand phenomena of the Earth system from global climate to the behavior of wildfires. • NSDL: National Science Digital Library The comprehensive source for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. Funded by the National Science Foundation. • Remote Sensing Using Satellites This website was developed by COMET® to support an introductory earth or atmospheric science course. Its goal is to help you better understand weather information by providing dynamic graphics, animations, and science content about remote sensing, satellite imagery, and hurricanes. As part of the module, you will apply what you've learned by exploring recent hurricanes through satellite imagery. • Roberts Forum Illustrated talks on current research regarding the atmospheric and related sciences • Science Now Newsletter for science teachers published by UCAR and SIRS, Inc., an educational publisher • Skymath Mathematics curriculum using real-time weather data • Unidata Sites Using Unidata Systems for K-12 and General Education Outreach • Windows to the Universe A fun and different Web site about the Earth and Space sciences
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