Skills Workshop

Building and Contributing a Collection to DLESE: Policies, Processes and Support from Start to Finish: Part 1

Lead Presenter: Holly Devaul, DLESE Program Center (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

This two-part workshop will provide you information on the processes and policies that guide collection development and accessioning in DLESE.  We will cover the intellectual endeavor of articulating the scope of the collection, and selecting and reviewing resources as well as an introduction to the technical tools and supports available to make your collection a reality.  Materials will include all relevant documents and information necessary for contributing a collection to DLESE. 

Part 1: This workshop will provide you with a framework and guidance on the intellectual task of defining and building a collection of digital resources within the context of the DLESE accessioning policy and processes. We will discuss and provide examples of scope statements, a key document that defines a collection.  Developing processes and criteria for creating or selecting resources for your collection will be discussed, using examples from DWEL (the Digital Water Education Library) and other projects. Guidelines for creating a review system for eligibility in the DLESE Reviewed Collection will be discussed.  The DWEL Workhub will be showcased as a technical tool for facilitating distributed collection building and review processes. Opportunities for small group activities will be interspersed throughout the morning.

Building and Contributing a Collection to DLESE: Policies, Processes and Support from Start to Finish: Part 2

Lead Presenter: Katy Ginger, DLESE Program Center

This two-part workshop will provide you information on the processes and policies that guide collection development and accessioning in DLESE.  We will cover the intellectual endeavor of articulating the scope of the collection, and selecting and reviewing resources as well as an introduction to the technical tools and supports available to make your collection a reality.  Materials will include all relevant documents and information necessary for contributing a collection to DLESE.

 Part 2: This workshop covers the technical aspects of collection building: collection types, metadata frameworks, creating metadata records, and sending metadata records to DLESE. Participants receive sample records illustrating different DLESE collections types and their corresponding metadata framework. Participants are introduced to controlled vocabularies and cataloging best practices for creating metadata records. Strategies for getting your own existing metadata into DLESE are discussed. Tools to generate metadata are demonstrated (includes the new DLESE Catalog System). Methods for getting metadata records to DLESE are offered (includes OAI).

Using DLESE Effectively for Earth Science Education

Lead Presenter: William Huskins, Central Burks School District (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

Earth Science is the interaction of spheres:  Hydrosphere, Lithosphere, Atmosphere, and Biosphere.  DLESE offers support services for developing resources for Earth Science Education. This workshop will explore how DLESE supports the classroom teacher.   Engaging in hand-on science is the way to teach.  Projects such as GLOBE, NASA Earth Systems Enterprise, and CLOUDSAT all use hands-on techniques, involving students in their own education and are Standards-based.  This is presented by a classroom teacher of 26 years and an AMS Atmospheric/Oceanographic Education Resource Agent.

Designing and Using Active and/or Inquiry-Based Learning with DLESE Resources

Lead Presenter: Roger Palmer, Bishop Dunne High School (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

This session will introduce users to the DLESE site and data through hands-on inquiry-based lessons that participants can take directly back to their classrooms.  Participants will have the chance to become familiar with how to design an inquiry based lesson using the DLESE website.  Do it today, use it tomorrow!

Integrating Learning Technologies that Support All Students with DLESE Resources

Lead Presenter: Sharon Locke, University of Southern Maine

Digital resources allow for flexibility in teaching that can enhance learning for students with diverse backgrounds and learning styles.  Using examples from DLESE, participants will learn the characteristics of effective digital resources that incorporate flexibility, usability, and accessibility to address the needs of all learners. The session will include demonstration of assistive technologies that improve access to digital resources. Working in small groups, participants will develop strategies for using the tools and resources of DLESE to scaffold learning for students with a range of learning modalities.

Developing Effective Digital Resources

Lead Presenter: Anne Egger, San Juan College

This workshop will offer an introduction to Visionlearning, an award-winning NSF-funded project soon to be available as a reviewed collection through DLESE. Visionlearning and DLESE share the goal of promoting access to high-quality educational resources in interdisciplinary science. By the end of this workshop, participants will have had a chance to thoroughly explore a resource that has produced demonstrable improvements in student learning in the classroom and is recognized by teachers for its ease of use.  Participants will 1) examine the design and pedagogical effectiveness of Visionlearning and 2) create their own online classroom using the Visionlearning resources. 

Customizing DLESE Resource Discovery Using Web Services

Lead Presenter: John Weatherley, DLESE Program Center

This half-day workshop will show how to incorporate the discovery and display of DLESE resources into a web site or desktop application using web services. The workshop will cover the web service and interoperability protocols available at DLESE, describe the RSS news feeds that are offered and provide a hands-on example of using the web services to construct a custom discovery search interface in a web page. The web services and protocols allow web site and application designers to access DLESE resources over the Internet and provide their user audience with a customized, contextualized view of the resources. For example, the IdeaKeeper project at the University of Michigan is using DLESE web services to search for and display DLESE resources in a Windows and Mac based desktop application used in the classroom, and the Florida Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (FCOSEE) has incorporated an ocean sciences DLESE search and discovery interface into their web portal.  Participants will interact with existing web pages and desktop applications that use the web services and see specific examples illustrating how the services and tools can be used, implemented and installed within their own web site or application. The workshop is meant for instructional designers, web site administrators or software engineers. Familiarity with HTML and knowledge of JSP or other CGI technologies will be helpful. Participants will be given an opportunity to install and modify some examples and are encouraged to bring their own laptop to the workshop.

Fundamentals of Evaluating Geoscience Education Projects

Lead Presenter: Susan Buhr, University of Colorado

Many geoscience educators, scientists, and developers need to evaluate their educational efforts and/or to communicate with professional evaluators.  This workshop will furnish participants with a basic overview of the elements and purposes of evaluation.  Workshop participants will learn about: 1) the difference between "formative" and "summative" evaluation; 2) typical steps involved in creating and implementing an evaluation plan; and 3) qualitative and quantitative data collection methods and when to use each.  Using a case study approach, participants will gain hands-on experience identifying a "measurable" evaluation goal and will develop a plan for evaluating it.

Using GPS in the Field

Lead Presenter: Mark Francek, Central Michigan University (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

In this "hands-on" introduction to GPS, we will use Lowrance GPS units for position acquisition, waypoint creation of features on campus, and navigation to these features. We begin the session with a brief discussion on the origins of GPS, how it works, and sources of error. Using web resources available from the DLESE collection, we will determine the best time to collect GPS data and view waypoints we created with aerial photography. Next, we use GPS units in the field to acquire position and elevation data, create a waypoint, and then navigate to an unknown waypoint. Point data collected in the field will then be entered into Microsoft Excel and then displayed in ArcView or ArcGIS. The session concludes with an overview of how GPS is revolutionizing research in the earth sciences.  Handouts on GPS operation and exemplary GPS web sites are provided.

Global Climate Modeling Research for the Classroom

Lead Presenter: Mark Chandler, Columbia University

Global climate models (GCMs) are one of the primary tools of climate research today. Unfortunately, few educators have access to such models. Our goal is to improve the quality of teaching and learning of climate-change science by providing broader access to an actual GCM and to help teachers use a research-quality climate model effectively in the classroom. The main objectives of this workshop are two-fold:  1) Train educators to use a GCM that operates on desktop computers through a graphical user interface. The training encourages educators to involve students in the full scientific process by covering: hypothesis development, experiment design, running simulations, visualization and analysis of data, and reporting results.  2) Facilitate collaborations between universities and the K-12 community, and between educational institutions and research scientists so students become familiar with the critical role that teamwork plays in climate science today.  To fulfill our goal, we created a suite of software called EdGCM, which includes a desktop version of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies GCM.

The Earth Exploration Toolbook: Using Real Data to Investigate the Streamflow-Precipitation Relationship

Lead Presenter: Tamara Ledley, TERC (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

Investigate the relationship between streamflow and precipitation by accessing real streamflow and precipitation data and, using a spreadsheet program, to prepare a graph that will help you analyze the relationship between them.  This activity will prepare you to help your students explore key factors that influence the relationship between streamflow and precipitation for the Sudbury River in Massachusetts.  You will gain enough knowledge about how to access the streamflow and precipitation data so that you can prepare a customized version of the activity to investigate this relationship for a watershed and river in your own region.  This activity is featured as one chapter in the Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET).  EET chapters provide step-by-step instructions for using Earth science datasets and software tools in educational settings. Each chapter walks users through an example--a case study in which the user accesses data and uses analysis tools to explore issues or concepts in Earth system science, and gives the user enough knowledge to modify the activity to be effective in his/her own situation.  Participants in this workshop will find out how the Earth Exploration Toolbook can support their efforts to increase the use of Earth science data and data analysis tools with their students.  Attendees will also become familiar with other EET chapters and data analysis resources by accessing them through DLESE.

Observe the Earth and Visualize the Future

Lead Presenter: John Moore, Burlington County Institute of Technology (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

This workshop will identify and examine resources of satellite imagery and real time Earth Systems data and demonstrate how to incorporate them into a Geographic Information System that allows students to observe the Earth from a new geo-referenced perspective, i.e. SPACE to EARTH and EARTH to SPACE (SEES Model).  Participants in this workshop will receive an introduction to GIS and the educational resources available to educators from both ESRI and Intergraph Corporation, partners in the GLOBE Program.  An overview of how GLOBE student data can be incorporated into themes that enable students to not only view satellite imagery but also look at ground truth data will be explored. Participants will use imagery from NASA, NOAA and the USGS as well as LandSat imagery, aerial photography and US Census data.  Student observation projects such as NASA'’ S'’COOL and next year's’ CLOUDSat Project, all adding data layers to give students a more comprehensive look at a study/observation site will be discussed.  Participants will explore the possibilities of how these projects can lead to new and exciting opportunities utilizing DLESE and the Geoscience Infrastructure.  A look at how all this applies to National Science Standards, Geospatial Workforce Readiness Standards, as well as Environmental and Technology Standards, Project-Based Learning and Scientific Inquiry, all while promoting Earth Systems Education in the pre-college community will have workshop participants ready for the classroom.  This workshop will enable participants to experience collaborative projects using current technologies that demonstrate that an International Classroom is no longer just a dream.  

Using Geographical Information Systems to Organize, Analyze, and Publish Data

Lead Presenter: Albert Lewandowski, Port Huron Area Public Schools (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

Participants will practice locating and obtaining GIS data available through the DLESE website.  Next, we'll use ArcGIS X.x to display, arrange and explore the information.  Finally, we'll publish the results using ArcGIS Publisher.  Publisher is like Acrobat Reader for GIS.  It produces standalone projects that allow others to arrange, view and publish the included data in a variety of ways.

Building Data Literacy with Real Data and Real Tools in the Classroom: From Middle School to Undergraduate Education

Lead Presenter: Bruce Caron, New Media Studio (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

The Data Discovery Toolkit and Foundry offers an end-to-end solution for earth data access and visualization on the student’s desktop. The application development environment is based on a combination of IDL (a commercial data-use software, for data access and manipulation) and Macromedia Director (a widely used authoring environment, for interactive user interface development). The result is a capability to put research level tools into simple, interactive user applications. This workshop will show how you can join the Foundry as a member and use the free tools to build your own custom application. This workshop is for anyone interested in bringing real data to the desktop.  For beginners, this workshop explains the data pathway from the earth data archive, to the scientist, to the application builder, and finally the classroom or museum kiosk. For application developers (or those who might like to try their hand) this workshop will also outline the use of the plug-in technology that moves data from IDL to Director.  A sample software product will be distributed. This product, the World Ocean Atlas 1998 Viewer, was the result of the Ocean strand of the 2002 DLESE meeting, and was created by The New Media Studio and Bill Prothero at UCSB.  Both the working cross-platform application and the source code will be distributed.

Selecting Standards-Based K-12 Resources

Lead Presenter: Ted Willard, AAAS (Recommended for newcomers to DLESE)

Now that there is a consensus on what students should know and be able to do, educators need resources to help their students achieve.  This workshop will focus on what factors make a resource particularly effective.  We will also look at how current and future aspects of the DLESE interface make it easier to look for standards-based resources.