Using Existing Programs as Vehicles to Disseminate Knowledge, Provide Opportunities for Scientists to Assist Educators, and to Engage Students in Using Real Data.

Many national and statewide programs throughout the K-12 science education environment teach students about science in a hands-on format, including programs such as Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), Project Learning Tree (PLT), Project Wild, Project Wet, and Hoosier River Watch. Partnering with one or more of these well-known programs can provide many benefits to both the scientists involved in disseminating research and the K-12 educators. Scientists potentially benefit by broader dissemination of their research by providing content enrichment for educators. Educators benefit by gaining understanding in content, becoming more confident in teaching the concept, and increasing their enthusiasm in teaching the concepts addressed. Here we discuss an innovative framework for professional development that was implemented at Purdue University, Indiana in July 2013. The professional development incorporated GLOBE protocols with iPad app modules and interactive content sessions from faculty and professionals. By collaborating with the GLOBE program and scientists from various content areas, the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University successfully facilitated a content rich learning experience for educators. Such activity is promoted and supported by Purdue University Libraries where activities such as Purdue’s GIS Day are efforts of making authentic learning sustainable in the State of Indiana and for national consideration

Integrating Spatial Educational Experiences (Isee) – Mapping a New Approach to Teaching and Learning Soil Science

The purpose of the Integrating Spatial Educational Experiences project is to develop the ability of our students to use digital maps: (1) to learn how and why soils and landscapes vary spatially at scales ranging from fields, to counties, states, and globally and (2) to learn how the spatial distribution of soils and landscapes impacts the distributions of land use, and environmental and ecosystem services across various scales. Our immediate audience is undergraduate students in soil, crop, natural resource, and environmental science curricula in colleges and universities, but the products created by this project will have broader uses for outreach to other clientele. Products to support teaching and learning include: (1) a revised and expanded Integrating Spatial Educational Experiences (Isee) web site, (2) maps of soil properties for Indiana, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Texas, (3) a community of practice dedicated to Integrating Spatial Educational Experiences in soil science education on STEMEdhub.org, and (4) lessons, worksheets, exercises, and experiences shared with the Isee community of practice

Creating a Virtual Learning Community with HUB Architecture: CLEERhub as a Case Study of User Adoption

The research aim of this article is to investigate the adoption patterns of HUB platforms that create and support virtual learning communities (VLC). The adoption patterns of one particular HUB called the Collaboratory for Engineering Education Research or CLEERhub, is presented as an example of how HUBs may be used as VLCs. After explaining the affordances of the HUB architecture, the article uses two approaches to discuss the adoption of CLEERhub by users. First, the authors link the five stages of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation model with various CLEERhub user metrics. The resultant mapping suggests that CLEERhub users are primarily in early stages of adoption. This is not an unexpected finding given that CLEERhub has been recently created. The second approach to studying adoption investigates the experience of a group of college students who used CLEERhub to aid them in completing a group assignment. A CLEERhub Usage Survey was developed and implemented during the last part of the semester to collect information about students’ experience with CLEERhub. Student reactions to CLEERhub were generally positive. After the two approaches are presented, the paper connects the approaches by speculating on how student experience (adoption approach 2) might be mapped to the five stages of Rogers’ model (adoption approach 1). The paper ends with considerations and suggestions for best practices