Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmed21a1227r&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #ED21A-1227
Other
0805 Elementary And Secondary Education, 0815 Informal Education, 0830 Teacher Training, 0845 Instructional Tools, 0855 Diversity
Scientific paper
The Windows to the Universe (www.windows.ucar.edu) Earth and space science educational program and web site has an extensive international presence. The web site reaches a vast user audience, having served more than 124 million page views across approximately 14 million user sessions in the past year. About 44% of these user sessions originated from domains outside of the United States. The site, which contains roughly 7,000 pages originally offered in English, is being translated into Spanish. This effort, begun in 2003, is now approximately 80% complete. Availability in a second major language has dramatically increased use of the site both in the U.S.A. and abroad; about 29% (4.1 million) of the annual user sessions visit Spanish-language portions of the site. In September 2005 we began distributing a monthly electronic newsletter for teachers that highlights features on the web site as well as other geoscience programs and events of relevance to educators. We currently have more than 4,400 subscribers, 33.6% of whom are outside of the United States. We are actively seeking news and information about other programs of relevance to this audience to distribute via our newsletter. We have also begun to solicit information (tips, anecdotes, lesson plans, etc.) from geoscience teachers around the world to share via this newsletter. Finally, Windows to the Universe participated in the Education and Outreach efforts of the MILAGRO scientific field campaign in Mexico in March of 2006. MILAGRO was a collaborative, multi-agency, international campaign to conduct a coordinated study of the extent and effects of pollutants emitted by a "mega-city" (in this case Mexico City) in order to understand the impacts of vast urban environments on global climate modeling. We enlisted several scientists involved with MILAGRO to write "Postcards from the Field" about their ongoing research during the project; these electronic "postcards" were distributed, in English and Spanish, via the Windows to the Universe web site. Serendipitously, while training scientists in the field in Veracruz, Mexico, to develop these electronic "postcards", we had the opportunity to conduct a teacher training workshop for 60 teachers from the Veracruz area. Several of these teachers will be attending a bilingual (English and Spanish) professional development workshop, along with teachers from Colorado, that we are conducting in Boulder, Colorado, this fall. In this session we will describe our approaches to international Education and Outreach efforts. We will describe techniques that we think work well, challenges to successful multi-cultural education efforts, and pitfalls that we've learned to avoid or to work around. We will also describe opportunities for other programs to take advantage of our large, global audience and to participate in our international outreach efforts, primarily via announcements in our electronic newsletter.
Bergman J. J.
Foster S. Q.
Gardiner L.
Genyuk J.
Johnson Rachael
No associations
LandOfFree
Global Geoscience Initiatives From Windows to the Universe does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Global Geoscience Initiatives From Windows to the Universe, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Global Geoscience Initiatives From Windows to the Universe will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-963419