Earth2Class: Connecting Teachers and Researchers

The Earth2Class (E2C) Workshops for teachers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) provide an effective model for improving knowledge, teaching, and technology skills of middle and high school science educators through ongoing interactions with research scientists and educational technology. With support from NSF Geoscience Education grant 0331232, our program has developed monthly workshops, web-based resources, and summer institutes in which classroom teachers and research scientists have produced exemplar curriculum materials about a wide variety of cutting-edge geoscience investigations suitable for dissemination to other teachers and their students. Some of the main goals of this program are focused to address questions such as: (1) What aspects of the E2C format and educational technology most effectively connect research discoveries with classroom teachers and their students? (2) What benefits result through interactions among teachers from highly diverse districts and backgrounds with research scientists, and what benefits do the scientists gain from participation? (3) How can the E2C format serve as a model for other research institution-school district partnerships as a mechanism for broader dissemination of scientific discoveries?

During the past years, Earth2Class workshops brought together LDEO scientists from diverse research specialties—climate change, paleoclimatology, geology, remote sensing, oceanography, and many other fields—with teachers from schools in the New York metropolitan area. Through the workshops, we have trained teachers to enhance content knowledge in the Earth Sciences, develop skills to incorporate improved electronic and hands-on investigations. We have made a special effort to increase the competency to teach the Earth Sciences of K–12 teachers serving in schools with high numbers of students from underrepresented groups, thereby providing greater role models to attract students into science and math careers.

The E2C web site (http://www.earth2class.org/) has become an important resource for Earth Science educators. It provides an effective format for disseminating results of scientific research to teachers and students through an archived workshop section that includes an introductory PowerPoint, links to the scientific discoveries, and suggestions for classroom applications created by participants and others. The educational resources section provides extensive curricular materials for students and teachers, including lesson plans, classroom activities, links to state and national Science Education Standards.

During the summers of 2004 and 2005, E2C also sponsored Earth Science Teachers Conferences that brought together educators from across New York and New Jersey to consider some of the challenges facing classroom teachers in trying to incorporate recent research discoveries into the curriculum. Their efforts have led to creation of a valuable web-based resource providing succinct statements of core concepts, essential vocabulary lists, selected labs and activities, and links to Internet sites providing scientific information that may not be incorporated into textbooks for years.

Overall, E2C seeks to make a significant contribution to the national effort to create networks of science researchers working with classroom teachers and teacher-trainers seeking effective methods for innovative instructional techniques, problem-solving strategies, and professional development, as well as meeting the challenges of state and national mandates.