John McDaris
Geoscience Content DeveloperScience Education Resource Center - Carleton College
507-222-7938, jmcdaris@carleton.edu
I started at SERC in September, 2003, and began by working on a couple of projects, including writing a module on instructional web design and enlarging our example collection of Investigative Case Based Learning activities.
Now, I stay busy generating geoscience content for a number of our websites including On the Cutting Edge, interfacing with a number of smaller projects using the CMS, and general site maintenance. The fastest growing part of my portfolio currently is the Associated Colleges of the Midwest FaCE Project. I am also the webmaster for the National Association of Geoscience Teachers website which we host here at SERC. I continue to work with faculty editors on a number of our projects to help move materials from inspiration to completion. Sometimes this entails actual content development and other times it involves being in contact with faculty to keep everything progressing. As always, I am a jack-of-all-trades, pulling together bits of content development, site design, digital catalog maintenance, office management, and supervision.
I've also been developing some expertise in the area of Hazards. Beginning in 2004 and 2005 with the Indian Ocean Tsunami and the record-breaking 2005 Hurricane Season, I've been keeping abreast of the various geohazards that people are trying to teach with and about. In collaboration with TERC, I have also been able to develop part of an Earth science lab course curriculum for high school students as a part of the EarthLabs project. As a way of tying together many of the threads of work in this area, I was able to spend some time putting together the Cutting Edge module on Teaching About Hazards in Geoscience.
Outside of work, I devote a lot of time to renovating the early 1960s era home I share with my partner, Jacob, and our dogs; gardening; running and softball. In addition, I sing professionally with a number of choral ensembles in the Twin Cities.
Education
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN - Geophysics, M.S., 2000
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC - Physics, B.S. cum laude, 1997
Publications
Curriculum Vitae (Acrobat (PDF) 15kB May18 09)
