SCEC INSTANeT News
	SCEC Educational Presentations at the CSTA Annual Conference

By John Marquis Two SCEC educational products were on display at the Annual Conference of the California Science Teachers Association (CSTA), held at the Convention Center in Sacramento on October 12 - 15. The theme for this year's conference was "Honor the Past. Imagine the Future." John Marquis points out the section concepts in the storyline of the "WHOLEarth Science Module." In keeping with this theme, both SCEC presentations demonstrated how our products combine the newly-emerging power of the Internet with a more traditional hands-on approach to science education. On Friday afternoon, the "WHOLEarth Science Module," a middle-school level web-based curriculum, was presented to an audience of about two dozen science educators in a three-hour shortcourse. Under development by SCEC with the help of educators from the K-12 Alliance, the "WHOLEarth" (Wed-based Hands-On Lessons in Earth Science) module will be a collection of 27 activities, most designed with both hands-on and online components, linked together as a kind of story for students to follow. The module's storyline divides the material into four sections, each with its own main concept, which all fall under the primary module concept: "The Earth changes through a process called plate tectonics." To break the ice at the start of the shortcourse, audience members were asked to stand by one of several words related to earth-science (e.g. fault, volcano, rift, etc.) that they felt best Cindy Anderson addresses the audience at the shortcourse for the "WHOLEarth Science Module." expressed their own experiences in using the Internet in their classrooms. They were then asked to share and compare those experiences with the others standing at the same word. When the groups shared their stories with the entire room, it became clear that almost no two experiences were alike, spanning broad spectra of issues involving hardware, accessibility, and product utility. After this initial activity, the team of presenters addressed the audience to explain the background of the "WHOLEarth" project, and how its design was envisioned to assist with some of the problems that had just been voiced. Jill Andrews, director of the SCEC Communication, Education and Outreach (CEO) program, led off with an overview of the CEO mission and its efforts. John Marquis, digital products developer for the SCEC CEO, continued the presentation with an overview of the creation and organization of the module. From there, he and Cindy Anderson, a regional director for the K-12 Alliance who assisted in the development of "WHOLEarth," proceeded to take the audience through a series of three different hands-on activities from the module. Those who stayed for all three got to dig for fossils, create edible mountains, and locate an earthquake they caused themselves, all while having lots of fun. On Saturday afternoon, John Marquis made a one-hour solo presentation of the SCEC educational module, "Investigating Earthquakes through Regional Seismicity," to an audience of about a dozen interested educators. Aimed at upper-level (high school through college) students and focused on teaching the basics of seismology, this product has been completed and available at http://www.data.scec.org/Module/ since February. As with the "WHOLEarth" module, this resource combines interactive online activities with conventional offline approaches to education, all arranged in accordance with an overarching storyline. Though the presentation was originally intended to be led by Katrin Hafner, the module's co-author and the manager of the Southern California Earthquake Data Center, she was unavailble that day. John Marquis filled in for her and held the attention of the audience with detailed examples of the material contained within the module, and a first-hand account of its development. Much of the audience seemed encouraged by the flexibility designed into the module, as their own concerns about online products and their accessibility echoed those heard in the previous day's "WHOLEarth" shortcourse. In all, the CSTA Annual Conference provided a valuable forum for raising awareness about the materials being created by the SCEC CEO program. We hope to return to the conference next year and show off the newest additions to our growing list of educational products!

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