The Earth System Science Education Alliance (ESSEA) is a partnership between the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) and the Center for Educational Technologies (CET) at Wheeling Jesuit University, through funding from NASA's Earth Science Enterprise. ESSEA is supporting universities, colleges, and science education organizations in offering K-12 Earth system science online graduate courses that have been developed within the CET at Wheeling Jesuit University for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise. The Earth system science courses use an inquiry-based instructional design model, are delivered over the Internet, and feature student-centered, knowledge-building virtual communities. They have been successfully implemented for both in-service and pre-service teacher education.

An annual announcement by ESSEA solicits proposals from US teams interested in offering the courses. Currently 12 institutions from across the US are offering the courses to teachers, with plans to select 8 new organizations in early 2002. This poster presentation will focus on the content and structure of the courses, which can be freely downloaded and used by any organization, as well as information on opportunities to participate in ESSEA.