Synopses & Reviews
From energy and water resources to natural disasters, and from changing climatic patterns to the evolution of the Earth's deep interior, geoscience research affects people's lives in many ways and on many levels. This book offers a stimulating cross-disciplinary perspective on the important relationship between geoscience research and outreach activities for schools and for the general public. The contributors - academics, research scientists, science educators and outreach program educators - describe and evaluate outreach programs from around the world. A section entitled Field-based Approaches includes a chapter describing an initiative to engage Alaskan communities and students in research, and another on problem-based learning in the field setting. The Online Approaches section discusses ways to connect students and scientists using online forums; use of the web and social media, including the United Nations University and its experience with the design of a web magazine featuring geoscience research; and video clips on marine geoscience created by students and scientists. The section on Workshop and Laboratory-based Approaches includes a chapter on teaching geochronology to high school students, and another describing an extracurricular school activity program on meteorology. The Program Design section presents chapters on Integrating Geoscience Research in Primary and Secondary Education, on ways to bridge research with science education at the high school level, and on use of online geoscience data from the Great Lakes. The concluding section, Promoting Research-enhanced Outreach, offers chapters on Geoscience Outreach Education with the local community by a leading research-intensive university, and on the use of research to promote action in Earth science professional development for schoolteachers.Geoscience Research and Outreach: Schools and Public Engagement will benefit geoscience researchers who wish to promote their work beyond academia. It offers guidance to those seeking research funding from agencies, which increasingly request detailed plans for outreach activities in research proposals. Policymakers, educators and scientists working in museums, learned societies and public organizations who wish to widen participation will also find this book useful.
Synopsis
This book shows how elements of geoscience research have been successfully incorporated in a wide range of teaching and outreach contexts through innovative approaches. It comprises 13 original articles sharing a strong theme of how research content, research skills, enquiry-based activities and research awareness are introduced and developed at universities, schools and in outreach programs. Innovations include pedagogical approaches (e.g., problem-based learning in field settings, technology-enhanced teaching, and development of interdisciplinary research skills) and supporting infrastructures (e.g., national outreach networks, campus building design, integrated teacher training programs, and research facilities used for outreach). Creative use of resources (e.g., publicly available databases and science-fiction films) and a variety of outreach contexts (e.g., museums, science festival, school-university projects, and teaching non-geoscience major undergraduates) are also explored. The description and evaluation of these projects on research-enhanced education are presented by contributors from 14 countries in Asia, Eastern and Western Europe as well as North America. While most of the published work on research-enhanced teaching comes from professional educationalists, the articles in the proposed book provide the research scientists' perspectives on how innovations can drive the bottom-up integration of scientific research and education. Research-teaching nexus has become an increasingly important theme both in academic and policy-making discourses. The proposed book will offer a timely contribution to these debates through articles written by researcher-teachers in the highly multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary subject of geosciences.
Table of Contents
PART I: INTRODUCTION.- 1. The context.- Geoscience and educational research in outreach activities, Vincent C. H. Tong.- Perceptions of time matter: the importance of geoscience outreach, Samuel A. Bowring.- PART II: LINKING GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH AND OUTREACH.- 2. Field-based approaches.- Engaging Alaska Communities and Students in Cryospheric Research, Kenji Yoshikawa and Elena B. Sparrow.- The Salish Sea Expedition: Walking the Gangplank of Science Outreach, K. Westnedge and A. Dallimore.- Problem-based learning in the field setting, Lung Sang Chan and Loretta M. W. Ho.- 3. Online approaches.- From Local to Extreme Environments (FLEXE): Connecting students and scientists in online forums, William S. Carlsen, Liz Goehring and Steven C. Kerlin.- Communicating scientific research through the web and social media: Experience of the United Nations University with the Our World 2.0 web magazine, Brendan F.D. Barrett, Mark Notaras and Carol Smith.- Marine geosciences from a different perspective: "edutainment" video clips by pupils and scientists, J. Dengg, S. Soria-Dengg and S. Tiemann.- Small, subject-oriented educational resource gateways: what are their roles in geoscience education?.- Matteo Cattadori, Cristiana Bianchi, Maddalena Macario and Luca Masiello.- 4. Workshop and laboratory-based approaches, The European experience of educational seismology, A. Zollo, A. Bobbio, J.L. Berenguer, F. Courboulex, P. Denton, G. Festa, A. Sauron, S. Solarino, F. Haslinger and D. Giardini.-