Greetings Geoscience Educators,
We invite you to attend a science education community meeting on April 15, 2021 to discuss the Compass Project, an NSF-funded effort led by the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College to improve the discoverability of SERC-hosted science education materials. Currently, SERC hosts materials from over 120 geoscience education projects. Compass is focused on reducing infrastructure silos between geoscience education projects and helping educators better navigate the breadth of the collections.
What: Compass Community Meeting
When: April 15, 2021 at 1:30 CT-2:30 CT
Where: Online via Zoom
Register by April 13
Our one hour community meeting on April 15th is your opportunity to learn about:
- SERC's immediate plan for improving resource discoverability
- Means for providing feedback on the project strategies for supporting improved and broader access to resources
- Ways to participate in testing and refining the discovery system
Improving resource discoverability and improving partnerships across geoscience education projects were identified as top priorities in the synthesis report from the November 2019 Geoscience Education Infrastructure planning meeting. In September of 2020, with funding from NSF and under the leadership of Sean Fox, project PI, SERC embarked on the Compass project to address these recommendations. The Compass project aims to:
- Improve our understanding of how Earth educators explore the wide array of resources currently hosted by SERC.
- Use that understanding to drive improvements in SERC discovery infrastructure and the organization of SERC-hosted materials to more effectively connect educators with the materials and information they need.
- Expand the scope of materials discoverable through SERC to include high-quality Earth education materials hosted by partner sites.
We are now seeking input from the community of Earth educators and project leaders who use our website and are excited to see discoverability improve. This includes iteration with a team of experts we call Community Discovery Advisors (CDAs), and soliciting feedback from those that have a vested interest in our resources.
If you are invested in our Earth education web materials and interested in attending the meeting or in viewing the recording at a later time, please fill out the registration form. We hope to see you there!
Thank you for your interest,
Your colleagues at SERC