NASA and NOAA: Data resources for education

Over 40 years of Landsat data on changes in Earth's lands over time are publicly available at no cost to users. The goal of this session is to put data download and analysis capabilities in to the hands of learners. Session participants will learn how to download and open Landsat scenes of their choice, using different combinations of wavelengths, to analyze local and regional change. They will gain understanding of how Landsat works and what undergraduates can do with the data; and they will find out where to obtain more resources for learning and teaching. The example in this rapid-learning 15 minute tutorial will investigate change over time, applying analysis tools to Landsat images of the Columbia Glacier: one of the most rapidly retreating glaciers in the world. You will walk away with an annotated list of Landsat Resources for Educators.

Undergraduate educators employing team-based learning or a flipped classrooms frequently feature in-class activities that can be completed in all or part of a single class period. In this theme session, we introduce short, data-rich inquiry investigations that can serve as introductory explorations in a flipped class format or computer lab. The data resources presented here highlight exploring the Earth's energy budget, albedo and shrinking glaciers and support student investigations of global climate change. The resources introduced in this session are found in the reviewed educational resource collection found in NASA Wavelength, a digital library supporting K-16 Earth and Space science education. Use NASA Wavelength to quickly and easily locate resources, and share your discoveries through social media, email and more. In this introductory session, we will demonstrate how NASA Wavelength's List Function can be used by faculty to create handouts for students to guide homework or flipped classroom assignments, and how your lists can be shared with others. You will access all the resources presented in this themed session through a list we've created for you in NASA Wavelength. You'll leave this session with an integrated set of resources that students can employ as they learn about dwindling land ice in the Northern hemisphere- and you will also know where to find similar kinds of materials that will support instruction in a wide variety of other Earth science topics.

The NASA Science Mission Directorate's (SMD's) vision for Education is: "To share the story, the science, and the adventure of NASA's scientific explorations of our home planet, [...] through stimulating and informative activities and experiences created by experts, delivered effectively and efficiently to learners of many backgrounds via proven conduits, thus providing a return on the public's investment in NASA's scientific research." In support of this vision, NASA has created a variety of resources and made available a variety of data useful to geoscience educators. This presentation will focus on a segment of those resources and data, for teaching about the Earth's atmosphere and energy budget, as they apply to changing albedo in Northern hemisphere regions. 1) GLOBE and S'COOL (http://www.globe.gov and http://scool.larc.nasa.gov). Since the mid-90's, both projects have engaged students and educators in observing the environment around them. S'COOL, which is a more focused project dealing with remote sensing of clouds, is currently being integrated within the GLOBE program to enrich its atmosphere investigations by connecting student observations to satellite retrievals of cloud information. It provides opportunities for students to directly compare remotely sensed satellite data to their own observations from the ground. 2) MY NASA DATA (http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov) offers a collection of more than 200 Earth system parameters obtained from a variety of NASA satellite instruments through a single interface to simplify access for scientific inquiry and educational purposes. A collection of ~100 lesson plans provide ideas for starting points to explore these authentic data. 3) Energy budget (http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/energy_budget/): In connection with the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) satellite project, a variety of resources have been created to help students understand the Earth's energy budget and the related topic of the greenhouse effect.

NASA's Global Climate Change Website (http://climate.nasa.gov/) is rich with visually stimulating animations, science video shorts, news features, scientific visualizations from recent launches, and near real time data that has enormous potential in climate science and Earth science education. Come and "Fly along" with NASA, observe Earth from space, view NASA data-maps of carbon dioxide, sea level, global surface temperature, ice mass and more. For this theme session, we will highlight resources that support student investigations of deceasing ice mass on land. Laura Faye Tenenbaum, education specialist for the climate communication team at JPL/NASA, and adjunct faculty at Glendale Community College will provide a live tour of the site's multimedia and interactive data assets, including Eyes on the Earth 3D, which integrates real-time satellite data in an immersive, 3D environment. Tenenbaum will also share a handout of "Tips 'n' Tricks for Teachers: 6 ways to use NASA's Global Climate Change Website in your classroom" that gives step-by-step classroom instructions on how to incorporate NASA's Climate Time Machine, Sea Level Viewer, Images of Change, Global Ice Viewer, Climate Reel, and Eyes on the Earth 3D into classroom activities. These teaching tips have been vetted in Laura's community college oceanography and environmental science classes, where these resources serve to increase student participation, increase topic comprehension, stimulate scientific curiosity, and generate excitement through the use of cutting-edge interactive media.

Government web portals are important trusted sources for science educators to retrieve content and data for instruction. Climate.gov is one such web portal, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to provide educators, scientists, decision makers, and the general public with authoritative climate information, data, and resources. To ensure they are serving their audience, NOAA conducts regular usability studies. They use the Quality of Relationship (QoR) metric, which was developed for assessing relationships between agencies and their audiences, to measure how well they are serving their visitors. The most recent evaluation of the four target audiences of Climate.gov was conducted during 2013 and 2014 using the QoR approach. The QoR construct is based upon five dimensions: -Awareness—knowledge that the agency exists, what it does, and why. -Trust—perception that the agency's products/services are accurate, credible, and authoritative. -Satisfaction—perception that agency's products/services are relevant, reliable, and complete. -Usability—regular use of agency's products/services; perception that they are easy to use. -Control Mutuality—perception that interaction with and influence on the agency is possible. In this evaluation, data were gathered using four methodologies: (1) a pop-up survey; (2) web analytics; (3) usability studies; and (4) telephone interviews with power users. The data were analyzed to generate QoR measures for each audience type and each dimension and to provide the agency with recommendations for enhancing the web portal. Our results show that the QoR values for Climate.gov have increased from 2012 to 2014. The website design, content, and approach are largely meeting the needs and expectations of the four audiences. Possible areas for enhancement include improving interconnectivity between website sections and enhancing availability through mobile devices. In this presentation, we will discuss the suite of evaluation techniques and share key findings, including user interest levels and perceptions of resource usability and credibility.