E & L track

Life and Literature Conference; Education and Learning Track

(put related documents, thoughts on this page)

Education Track Questions

• Are these digital resources useful for L+E? (YES!!!!)
  • Audiences include: formal and informal education, citizen scientists, interested public
• If so, how?
• What is needed to make them accessible and useful?

Ideas for input/discussion

• Ask our EOL international L+E partners for input
  • Tom may attend International L+E meeting, along with Cathy Horton
• Ask our ISEC (Informal Science Education Centers) partners for input (e.g. exhibit designers and educators)
• Have a session that demos tools that use the results from BHL
  • atomized/mined data for species interaction tool
  • atomized/mined data for tree of life tool
  • easy access to images
  • Crowd-sourcing tasks
• Examples of how electronic textbooks can use BHL (e.g., CK-12) in a variety of ways
• Citizen Scientist uses: resource, images, historical information about ranges, distribution, etc

Update on April 11, 2011

Life and Literature Conference; Education and Learning Track

The digital resources of BHL have numerous uses and benefits for formal, informal and life-long education and learning. The educational opportunities will only increase as better tools and services are provided to search, access and manipulate content. The potential audiences include citizen scientists, students from K-12 and university, educators, informal science education centers, exhibit designers and the interested public.

This session will highlight what educational audiences want to do with digitized literature resources and the new tools and services that are needed to make the digital resources in BHL and other on-line biodiversity literature repositories accessible and useful to different learning groups. In addition, the session will also explore options for the involvement of the general public, students and citizen scientists in crowd-sourcing tasks such as identification of images, species descriptions, historical range and distribution information.


Possible Speakers/Panel Members

1. Natalia Zamora - Costa Rica; INBio and Cyberhives Learning Program

• formal learning through informal settings; working with taxonomists as mentors to middle school/high school students and their teachers

Biography
Natalia Zamora is the Director of Education and Communication at Costa Rica´s National Biodiversity Institute. She works at INBio since 1995 and has had several positions within the institution, from Communications Officer and Social Outreach Coordinator to INBioparque´s General Manager and Entrepreneurial Development Director. Currently Doctorate Candidate in Environmental Education at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, holds a MSc. in Environmental Education and Communication Sciences of the College of Forest Wildlife and Range Science, Resources, Recreation and Tourism Department at the University of Idaho, ID, USA and a Bachelor’s Degree in Collective Communication Sciences (Journalism, publicity, public relations, radio and video productions) of the University of Costa Rica.

2. Ken Walker - Australia; Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

• Citizen Science for kids + Citizen Science for gov. officials; leading the cause of changing information from “museum-based science into information-based science.”

Biography
Ken has a PhD in morphological systematics and has trained as an entomologist who has worked at Museum Victoria, Melbourne now for almost 30 years! That’s before the internet was invented so you can imagine the changes in communication methods I have experienced and participated in during the last 16 years. In Australia, a museum curator has 3 main tasks: Research, Collection Management and Public Programs. 30 years of working with the public has given me an interesting perspective of what types of information of public wants and I have used this knowledge to create exhibitions, write popular insect and spider books and create websites. My focus now is to transition museum-based science into information-based science: there is a big difference the two audience.

Several years ago, I became involved with a citizen science program called Bug Blitz begun by E.O. Wilson (the person who created the word Biodiversity) in America. Some may have heard of the 24 Bug Blitzes in Central Park, New York. Here in Australia, we established a similar project but targeted only school children - some of whom had never been taken outside of a city. The success of our Bug Blitzes has been with weave together science and art -- so, for each Bug Blitz we take along a professional puppeteer. We teach them Biodiversity and the puppeteer teaches them how to make puppets from the material they find and source in the field. At the end of the 3-5 day Bug Blitz course, groups of student put on plays depicting some aspect of Biodiversity that have seen during the visit. The use of puppetry seems to be the “magic glue” that make it all work and to have fun learning about evidence based science.

3. CK-12 digital on-line “FlexBooks” -- Formal Education textbooks for elementary through university

• __http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/__
• __http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/browse/seeall/science/__

Douglas Wilkin, Ph.D. is currently the Chair, Department of Science at Arleta High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Prior to teaching high school, Dr. Wilkin held a number of faculty positions at leading research institutions throughout the United States, including the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations in Quantico, Virginia. He is extensively published.
Author of the chapter(s):
Molecular Genetics
Human Genetics
Biotechnology
Cell Division and Reproduction

Juli Weiss
Juli Weiss is CK12's Science Leader and Editor. Trained in biochemistry and biophysics, she formerly served as director of clinical research in a university setting. She has spent the last two decades in the non-profit sector in various leadership positions and non-profit boards. She previously served as executive director of the Pacific Vascular Research Foundation; principal partner of Scientific Solutions; co-founder, president, and executive director of California Summer Music; and program officer of the Koret Foundation. She currently serves on the Nueva School Board of Trustees, the Del Sol Performing Arts Organization Board of Directors; Phillips Academy Andover Parent Fund; and the Cate School Fund. She is delighted to be a part of CK12's vision and mission, transforming education by creating a new paradigm for accessing knowledge as well as trailblazing in Open Source. She is hopeful CK12's work will inform public policy and advocacy.

4. Smithsonian Institution

In part this suggestion has two origins: First it is a legitimate project that EOL is pursuing (although we won’t hear about the proposal until July 2011) and second because I heard one or two members of the L+L group say they thought strategically it would be a good idea to have someone from SI be on a panel. They were thinking of a scientist, but we could also offer an education angle.

EOL, the SI National Museum of Natural History and the __National Science Resources Center__ (NSRC) submitted a proposal in September 2010 to the US Department of Education to improve middle school science education through introducing “authentic science” practices and resources into the curriculum. These include real and virtual museum objects and virtual resources such as EOL -- that specify and include BHL. (See exerpt below for a sense of the project.)

The colleagues associated with this project who may be appropriate for the L+L panel (we should pick one of the three) are:

Sally Schuler
Principal Investigator: Sally Shuler is the Executive Director of the National Science Resources Center (NSRC). As one of the co-founders of the NSRC two decades ago, her leadership has created an organization committed to establishing effective science programs for all students. In addition to the NSRC, her three decades of national and international experience in K-16 science education have included 15 years of teaching math and biology and serving as a chair, trustee, or advisor for numerous boards and organizations. These include being a member of the Board of Trustees for the Keystone Center; the Merck Institute for Science Education Advisory Board; Chair of the Science Education Program of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund; Chair of the Assessment Committee for the National Youth Science Camp; Advisory Board Member for the Math/Science Partnership Comprehensive Projects of Rutgers University and the Boston Science Partnership; Expert Panel for Washington State; a member of the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation Academic Advisory Panel; member of the Lemelson Advisory Board; member of the National Assessment of Educational Progress Science Steering Committee; and membership on the National Advisory Board of the Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence. Ms. Shuler has a M.S. in Environmental Health Sciences from George Washington University, and a B.A. from Edinboro State University, with majors in Biology and Geology.

Devin Reese
Science Instructional Materials Specialist: Dr. Devin Reese is a contractor for the National Science Resources Center, providing technical expertise in the incorporation of science education research findings into curriculum development and revision for the STC Program. Devin has also contracted to AAAS Project 2061 as a member of item teams to help review and refine test items in the Life Sciences. Previously, she developed science programs for Network Family and Child Centers, taught science enrichment courses for the City of Alexandria Public School System, and taught Environmental Science as an adjunct faculty for AIU. Collectively, she has 8 years of experience in the field of science education, preceded by more than 15 years of experience in basic and applied scientific research. She earned her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from U.C. Berkeley in 1996 and subsequently managed environmental field projects for the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Agency for International Development. She earned her BA from Harvard University in 1986 in Ethology.

Bill Watson
Co-Principal Investigator: Bill Watson is the Chief of Onsite Learning at the National Museum of Natural History. He has been responsible for increasing the education volunteer staff by100%, instituting a museum-wide professional development program for education staff and volunteers, and expanding opportunities for public interface with scientists at the museum. His work includes providing strategic direction for the conceptualization, production, implementation, and evaluation of onsite informal educational programming at the Museum in its exhibitions and learning venues, including programming for over 700,000 students who visit the museum annually. He also is a co-leader of the Museum’s Educational Research and Evaluation Leadership Team. Before working at the Museum, Bill worked on a large scale evaluation of a middle school science curriculum at the George Washington University, served as Education Director for the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center, and was a middle school science and math teacher.

Optional speakers

• Yinan Liu

Yinan Liu is the deputy director of the Office of the Biodiversity Committee, Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is located in IBACS. She is a newcomer in the biodiversity field. Yinan obtained her degree in administration in China and studied English at San Diego Mesa College in California, USA. Prior to her current position, she did technical work in biology at UC San Diego.

• Vivian Malema

Vivian Malema is the Director of Biodiversity Education and Empowerment Programme at the South African National Biodiversity Institute. She joined the Institute in March 2010 with previous experience at local government, national government, NGO and a school setting. She is a Masters in Environmental Education graduate and her experience include public participation and awareness in relation to green infrastructure development, curriculum policy development and facilitating implementation by teachers and curriculum advisers, professional development of teachers and curriculum advisers, generating standards for environmental qualifications, etc. Current responsibilities include managing the development and implementation of biodiversity education in seven environmental education centres based in national botanical gardens across South Africa. The approach to the programmes have not been digital but very much face-face . My interest in the workshop is to learn from colleagues digital programmes can be set up, the cost implications, the successes, challenges and lessons learnt.

• Hala Barakat (EOL has an airline ticket for her)

Hala N. Barakat is a trained botanist and has a Ph.D. in Paleoecology from the University of Aix-Marseille III, France. She acts as deputy director at the Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) affiliated to the Library of Alexandria and is in charge of the natural heritage documentation and training programs at CULTNAT.

She is also member and former president of Nature Conservation Egypt (NCE) a non profit organization active in the field of conservation of endangered species and habitats and raising awareness to environmental issues in Egypt. Dr. Barakat also contributes regularly to local press on issues related to biodiversity and protected areas in Egypt.