GOALS for the Palmer LTER Education Outreach Forum were to:
1. discuss educational outreach alternatives,
2. consider elements of successful outreach,
3. formulate steps toward joint programs, and
4. develop guidelines for Palmer LTER Schoolyard efforts.

Discussion topics explored during the Forum addressed these goals.
 

TOPIC 1:   What is the currently used terminology that describes personnel who will contribute to the Palmer LTER Schoolyard programs?

Formal Educator - the classroom teacher.

Informal Educator - representative of an outreach program provided by:
    institutions such as museums and science centers (docents, instructors);
    recreational facilities such as national/state parks (ranger) or for-profit parks;
    environmental groups such as Sierra Club,  World Wildlife Federation.

Nonformal Educator - informational sources in a child's daily environs, such as parents, other relatives, and friends.

Science-Education Researcher - researcher investigating effectiveness of curriculum content and presentation, teaching techniques and modes of learning.

Science Researcher - for the discussion here: scientists within the LTER network.

Information Manager/Technologist - for the discussion here: LTER data managers and computer consultants working with formal educators.

Outreach Education Coordinator/Liaison - a person with background in several of the above disciplines who functions as a coordinator to facilitate dialogue among these specialists and to implement outreach programs.

Each of these specialties was represented at both the LTER Biosphere Workshop and the Palmer LTER Education Outreach Forum.  Partition among these education specialties is given in the Participant Science-Education Specialties in the Appendices.
 

TOPIC 2:  Which organizations, institutions and programs might participate directly or indirectly in Palmer LTER schoolyard programs?

Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research Program (PAL LTER) will provide the scientific expertise, data  and researchers to ensure accuracy in content for all education materials and training for formal educators and/or liaisons with informal educators that might be undertaken through Palmer LTER Schoolyard programs. When practical, interactions with teachers, students, informal educators and science-education researchers will be encouraged. Karen Baker is the Palmer LTER Information Manager; Dawn Rawls works with the Palmer LTER as an informal educator and science writer/editor. [www.icess.ucsb.edu/lter]

Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER) will, as sites develop education outreach programs, provide opportunities for cross-site outreach activities, such as cross-site data bases that are easily accessible by and useful for middle and high school students.  Diana Ebert-May is the chair of the standing Committee on Education of the LTER Network. [http://www.lternet.edu/]

National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) provided the conference site for this Forum as well as the valuable experience and assistance of their outreach education coordinator, Scott Bell.  As an NSF Center for Excellence, NCEAS facilitates collaborative research on major fundamental and applied problems in ecology, and maintains ties with researchers at UCSB and with the LTER Network.  NCEAS maintains the Kids do Ecology program. Kids do Ecology consists of NCEAS' scientists adopting local 5th  grade classes and, together with the students, exploring specific ecology problems (questions and hypotheses) through the collection, analysis and interpretation of empirical data. [www.nceas.ucsb.edu; http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/nceas-web/kids]

Teachers Experiencing Antarctica (TEA) is a program sponsored by the NSF in which teachers are selected to travel to the Antarctic and the Arctic for a field season  to participate in ongoing research.  TEA is a partnership among teachers, researchers, students, the school district, and the community.  Two Teachers Experiencing Antarctica, Besse Dawson and Mimi Wallace, are currently working  with the Palmer LTER outreach program. [http://tea.rice.edu]

Department of Education, U C Santa Barbara is a community of students, faculty and staff committed to reshaping schooling from kindergarten to twelfth grade for the benefit of children within our diverse society. Department researchers Gregory Kelly and Julie Bianchini have a particular interest in science education. Presentations by Gregory Kelly and graduate student Candice Brown provided an overview of science education research and of an SPSI supported classroom assessment project. [http://education.ucsb.edu]

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (SBMNH) in addition to being a center for exhibits and research on California natural history and California Native American culture, offers extensive on-site and outreach education opportunities. Shiela Cushman is the Director of Education at SBMNH. [www.sbnature.org]

Santa Barbara Sea Center, found on the Santa Barbara pier,  is the marine-science branch of  the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.  The Sea Center displays live-animal and static exhibits about the Santa Barbara Channel ecosystem and offers school group tours that include oceanographic sampling from the pier. Eric Solomon is the manager of the Sea Center. [http://seacenter.coastline.com]

The Marine Educators Regional Alliance (MERA) is coordinated by the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS) focusing on the California coastal and marine ecosystem.  [http://www.rain.org/~mera/]

Science Partnership for School Innovation (SPSI) is a collaborative program among two NSF research centers at U C Santa Barbara,  the Center for Quantized Electronic Structures (QUEST) and the Materials Research Laboratory (MRL), and the Santa Barbara County Education Office.  SPSI forms teams of middle, junior and high school teachers, together with a regional administrator and a project coordinator to support development of curricula and assessments.  SPSI also gives these teams access to new technologies and university scientist partners.  Fiona Goodchild is a U C Santa Barbara researcher working with SPSI; Will Winn, Santa Barbara area Middle School Teacher, is an active member of SPSI.

Planet Earth Science is an educational software development company located in Santa Barbara and working with U C Santa Barbara scientists. Bruce Caron presented demonstrations of the El Nino cd-rom and discussions of the Antarctic ozone hole cd-rom.[www.planearthsci.com]
 
 

TOPIC 3:  Which currently available curricula and/or activities feature Antarctic, ecology or weather/temperature content?

Skymath  This curriculum is designed for 7th and 8th grade mathematics, but has several inquiry-based activities treating thermometry history, calibration and design of experiments to measure air temperature. [www.edc.org/LTT/SKYMATH]

Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is a hands-on international environmental science and education program linking students, teachers, and the scientific research community through student data collection and observation.   Students  transmit their data to a central data processing facility via the Internet,  and receive vivid images composed of their data and data from other GLOBE schools around the world. Any student may download data.  Uploading requires previous workshop training in data-collection protocols. [www.globe.gov]

Glacier  is funded by the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) and the Office of Polar Programs of NSF and involves polar researchers, education specialists, formal educators from several states and TEA participants.   The website offers background information and links to current polar research.  A curriculum is being tested in a pilot program. [www.glacier.rice.edu]

Forecasting the Future is an NSF-funded curriculum based on global climate change research done at Scripps Institution of Oceanography of U C San Diego.  Birch Aquarium at Scripps conducted teacher training and supplied inquiry-based-science activity kits.

Live From Antarctica (LFA) is a series multi-media presentations sponsored by NSF, Office of Polar Programs and NASA.  Live video broadcasts from Palmer Station and television coverage on PBS were supplemented with online curriculum materials.  [http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/antarctica2]

Los Marineros (SBNHM) is a curriculum program now adopted for all 5th graders in Santa Barbara. SBMNH provides the program which includes teacher training and regular support meetings, five field trips for students, pre- and post- field-trip lesson materials and evaluation forms. [http://www.rain.org/~losmar/mariner.htm]

Regional Alliance for Information Networking (RAIN) is a non-profit educational program of Visible Light, an eduational corporation in Santa Barbara, California.  It serves as a model of Public Internet Broadcasting 'Technology that Works for People'. [www.rain.org]

TERC is a nonprofit organization established in 1965 to improve math and science learning and teaching through creation of innovative curricula and facilitation of teacher development. [http://www.terc.edu]
 
 

TOPIC 4: What is Inquiry-Based Science Education?
To address this topic we formed working groups, each of which comprised a formal educator, informal educator, and a science-education researcher.  The groups' reports reflected a general consensus, expressed in a variety of vocabulary.

Working Group 1: Inquiry-based science education centers upon
   open-ended question(s),
   information gathering,
   emphasis on processes of critical thinking, and
   some form of deliberation, sharing of  ideas, and of moving toward consensus.

Working Group 2: Inquiry-based science education centers upon anything
involved in answering a question, which could be:
   'cookbook' types of labs,
   a problem posed with no specific directions, and
   open ended questions on a topic.

Working Group 3: Inquiry-based science education centers upon:
   giving students opportunities to explore posing a question and
   investigating answers;
   structuring an open-ended experience without a preconceived right answer;
   providing time, activities, and discussions to help students explore
   misconceptions; and
   involving community based, non-school time experiences.
 
 

TOPIC 5: What successful paradigms exist for teacher-student-researcher interactions?   These interactions usually rely upon an interpretive or instructional interface such as:

 1.  Formal Educator (classroom teacher) serves as interface in these models:
Teachers Experiencing Antarctica/Arctic:  teacher interns with polar researcher and later works in Antarctica/Arctic; teacher then reports on experience and brings new activities to the public online, to his/her students and to other teachers through workshops.
TERC: teacher interns with ecologist and brings new insight and activities
to the students.
Mentoring :  teachers share their classroom techniques and activities with other teachers and classrooms.
Science Partnership for School Innovation:  teacher team produces new approaches, curriculum, assessment tools.  Members of this team lead workshops for other teacher/administrator  teams.

2.  A liaison or coordinator provides the interface in these models:
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS): outreach coordinator recruits scientists and classroom teachers/students to participate in Kids do Ecology program.  Scientist makes five classroom visits progressing through an introduction of scientists' work, assisting class in designing an experiment,  setting data protocols and implementing the experiment, helping with data analysis and guiding documentation of the experiment. [http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/nceas-web/kids/]
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History:  through the Los Marineros program museum liaison personnel conduct field trips for teacher's classroom of students. [http://www.rain.org/~losmar/mariner.htm]
NSF funded liaison positions:  REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) fellows have served as conduits for current research to enter classroom curriculum.   At some LTER sites an education coordinator is funded through outreach supplements.

3.  A field trip serves as an interface opportunity in these models:
Santa Barbara Sea Center and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: teachers bring classes to see exhibits and have hands-on experiences.
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: teachers bring classes to visit curatorial scientists in their labs at the museum.

4.  Communication media and forums can also serve as an interface:
Live from Antarctica:  the press, writers and artists visit the researcher in the field and report to the classroom and public via live broadcasts and printed material.
Curriculum development:  many institutions dealing in either formal or informal education write classroom curricula in collaboration with scientists.
Activity kits/ hands-on materials/videos/cd-rom development: these interface media are now supplementing or even replacing the fully developed curricula. The worldwide web is now a publication site for activities and entire curriculum packages.
Workshop format:  participants can vary, but, as in the case for LTER, NCEAS and SPSI, often include: teachers, science-education researchers and scientists.  Teachers presenting at workshops sponsored by state and national teachers' associations often mentor other teachers by providing examples and demonstrations of new activities and materials for science classrooms.
Email contact:  Ask-A-Scientist programs exist at many informal science institutions and as a component of many research institutions' outreach programs.  This link between teachers and researchers can exist at several levels from personal correspondence to aiding students with forming questions for ask-a-scientist programs.