The EarthLabs Team

Tamara Ledley, Principal Investigator

Tamara Shapiro Ledley is Principal Investigator for the NSF-funded Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Pathway, EarthLabs-Cryosphere, EarthLabs-Earth System Science, AccessData, DataTools, and Earth Exploration Toolbook projects. She has been involved in a range of Earth system science education activities that include developing museum exhibits that bring near real time images of the Earth to the public, directing teacher training programs in Earth system science, developing Earth system science learning activities for the GLOBE program, developing scientific research programs for the participation of students, and bringing scientific data into educational venues. Prior to her science education work, Tamara conducted a research program that focused on understanding the role of sea ice and continental ice sheets in shaping global climate on seasonal to ice age time scales.

Cathryn Manduca

Cathy Manduca is the Director of the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College where she is involved in a variety of projects that support improvements in geoscience and science education. Her work includes organizing workshops and other activities for faculty and educators of all types, developing web-resources that support educators, and researching how faculty and students learn. Much of her work contributes to the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). She is also the Executive Director of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers.

Cathy's roots are in geology where she remains interested in the petrologic and structural evolution of western Idaho and its implications for the growth of continental crust.

Ellen Iverson, Evaluator

Ellen Iverson is an Evaluation Specialist and Programmer for the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College. Ellen focuses on evaluating SERC's websites and programs, in particular the Starting Point project, is interested in how science faculty learn about emerging technologies and pedagogy.

Before coming to Carleton College, Ellen spent 14+ years in industry. Her experiences included managing technical staff, developing web programs for medical societies, writing code for multimedia demos, leading a team for the AS/400 index search engine, and writing help text for various IBM platforms.

John McDaris, Curriculum Developer

John McDaris is a Geoscience Content Developer for the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College, and a curriculum developer for the EarthLabs Hurricanes unit. Currently, John serves as a primary contact for several SERC websites. He is also the Webmaster for the National Association of Geoscience Teachers website, and works with faculty editors on a number of projects to help move materials from inspiration to completion. John also builds new content related to geologic or natural disasters around the globe.

John's other work has included writing a module on instructional web design, contributing to SERC's collection of Investigative Case Based Learning activities, supervising student workers and, and performing general web site maintenance.

Erin Bardar, Curriculum Developer

Erin Bardar, a curriculum developer at TERC, received her Ph.D. from Boston University in astronomy in 2006. As a NASA Graduate Student Research Program (GSRP) fellow at BU, Erin conducted research in astronomy education with a focus on student understanding of light and spectroscopy. She created the Light and Spectroscopy Concept Inventory for evaluating introductory college astronomy students' conceptions of light and spectroscopy; developed curriculum for the NSF-funded Project LITE; and received a U.S. patent for a binocular spectrometer.

Erin is the primary curriculum developer for the EarthLabs Fisheries unit and co-developer for the Corals unit. Her other current projects includes astronomy curriculum development for Investigating Astronomy at TERC, and Earth science and physics curriculum development for Foundation Science at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC).

Elizabeth (Betsy) Youngman, Curriculum Developer

Betsy Youngman is a curriculum developer for a variety of educational projects across the nation. She has taught middle and high school science for 25 years, most recently at Phoenix Country Day School. Betsy has a master's degree in science education from Montana State University, where she focused on the use of geospatial tools in science education.

Betsy's dual passions for education and the out-of-doors have driven her to design and lead science focused trips for students to the beaches of Cape Cod, the kelp forest of the Channel Islands, the tundra of the Arctic and the Rainforests of Costa Rica.

Betsy contributed curriculum for the EarthLabs Drought unit.

Sean Fox

Sean Fox is the Technical Director at the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College. He designs, builds, and runs the technical infrastructure that powers the websites that are central to most of SERC's activities.

Sean has been a web site author and web server administrator since 1993. Before joining the SERC office in January of 2002 he was the Academic Computing Coordinator for the Natural Sciences at Carleton College. Sean worked closely with science faculty implementing a wide variety of computing technologies in support of curricular innovation and was part of a team nationally recognized for excellent faculty support.

Sabra Lee, Summative Evaluation Specialist

Sabra Lee is an evaluator in the Program Evaluation and Research Group of Lesley University. She has worked on evaluation teams for a variety of educational programs in NASA's office of Space Science and for NSF programs. She has evaluated numerous programs in the arts, mathematics, and science education at the local, state, and national levels.

Daniel Barstow, Founding Principal Investigator

Daniel Barstow is the Founding Principal Investigator (PI) for the National Model Earth Science Lab Course and was Director of TERC's Center for Earth and Space Science Education (CESSE). He is currently President of the Challenger Centers for Space Science Education. Barstow has been a PI or Co-Principal Investigator on several NSF, NOAA, and NASA projects, including Windows On Earth, ISS EarthKAM, GLOBE, and MarsQuest Online. Barstow was also a Co-Principal Investigator for the National Conference on the Revolution in Earth and Space Science Education, and is a leading voice for state and national policy reform to "make the revolution real" in Earth and space science education reform.

LuAnn Dahlman, Founding Project Director/Curriculum Developer

LuAnn Dahlman is the Founding Project Director for the National Model Earth Science Lab Course. LuAnn was also a Co-Principal Investigator on two NSF-funded projects, the AccessData Workshops, and IPY: Engaging Antarctica.. She is currently a Communications Specialist with NOAA's Climate Program Office.

In addition to her role as Project Director, LuAnn developed curriculum for the EarthLabs Hurricanes and Corals units. Previously, LuAnn wrote curriculum materials for University of Arizona's Image Processing for Teaching program and taught professional development workshops for the Center for Image Processing in Education. She began her career in science education by spending seven years teaching Earth science and chemistry at the high school level.