ESIP teacher workshops

The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) recruited presenters and participants for an innovative teacher workshop held in conjunction with the Federation of Earth System Information Partners (ESIP) summer conference at the University of California - Santa Barbara (UCSB) in July 2009.

ESIP members from around the country have been meeting annually for over a decade. As a unique consortium of over 100 organizations that collect, interpret and develop applications for remotely sensed Earth science data, ESIP meetings are a perfect venue to connect K-12 educators with remote sensing scientists. This past summer, for the first time, the ESIP education committee invited science teachers to attend special teacher track sessions at the ESIP conference to learn about efforts to study and steward our planet.

With support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), participating G6-12 teachers attended the conference plenary presentations followed by an afternoon and second full day of workshop sessions featuring hands-on computer applications of Earth science data and tools. Sessions were led by ESIP members from NOAA, CIMSS, NASA, and other ESIP organizations. A total of twenty-nine attendees registered for the teacher track sessions at the ESIP conference.

This AMS presentation will summarize the 2009 ESIP teacher workshop before presenting two sets of evaluation findings; those gathered on-site and a second set of survey results distributed and compiled by two UCSB graduate students who attended the conference and awarded funds to conduct follow-up evaluations with teacher workshop participants. Plans for the 2010 ESIP Teacher workshop will also be announced.