Sarah Fortner
Science Education Resource Center (SERC)
Carleton College
I am the Director of Sustainability at Carleton College. Please contact me at sfortner@carleton.edu. My expertise is in climate change and environmental justice research, education, and local to national community building. I co-lead the Midwest Climate Educator Community of Practice supporting K-12, university, and informal educators in Midwest specific climate education action. Leadership roles include: membership in the NASEM Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Program, membership the U.S. National Committee for Geological Sciences (USNC/IUGS), AGU GeoHealth Leadership (Policy Committee Co-chair), AAC&U Civic Prompts Advisory Board, Council on Undergraduate Research Innovation & Collaboration Committee, and the National Association of Geoscience Teachers Traveling Workshop. I've led nationally recognized civic and sustainability program development funded through community collaboration and NSF InTeGrate. My expertise includes helping faculty and programs move initiatives forward through collaboration. See for example the Metal Redlining Network, the Redlining Education & Change Coalition & Springfield Lead Pollution. I am a proud member of the Juneau Icefield Research Program Academic Council. JIRP inspired me to launch my career.
Website Content Contributions
Course Modules (7)
Unit 2: Soil Characteristics and Their Relationship to Land Use Practices part of A Growing Concern
In a hands-on exploration, students will learn to describe and quantify the porosity and permeability of soil models representative of both agricultural and natural environments. Students will use this information ...
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Activities (2)
Personal temperature monitoring to build context for climate justice and community decisions. part of Service Learning:Activities
Climate change is often presented in disconnection from human experiences central to equitable and just decision making. In this activity students use PocketLab temperature probes to collect and analyze data on ...
Natural Hazards & Climate Change Risks part of Service Learning:Activities
× Students characterize how climate change impacts natural hazards and pose research-based solutions to the county Emergency Management Agency. Presentations require the use of local data, created figures, ...
Course (1)
Global Climate Change part of Service Learning:Courses
× Consequences of global climate change already include: increased drought, heat waves, flood intensity, glacial retreat, and sea level rise. Solutions are needed to reduce human impact on our climate system ...
Essay (1)
Mapping for Decision-making part of GET Spatial Learning:Blog
This blog post examines how geoscience education can enhance decision-making skills by integrating spatial tools and cross-scale analyses to address complex societal challenges, emphasizing local civic engagement, hotspot mapping, and the use of public datasets to connect earth systems with community priorities and improve science literacy.
Conference Presentations (5)
Discovery Improvements for SERC Website Visitors part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2022:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday Poster Session
The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) hosts materials from over 120 geoscience education projects. However, the project-focused nature of the SERC website means that information is siloed and users have ...
Other Contributions (5)
Community and Political Engagement in the Geosciences part of Integrate:Teaching for Sustainability:Strategies and Teaching Themes:Connect to the World We Live In:Civic Engagement
This suite of pages was developed by Sarah Fortner, Wittenberg University with contributions from Rob Baker, Wittenberg University Community and political engagement in your earth or environmental science classes, ...
Communities
North Central Section, Geoscience Education Research Division
July 2021 Earth Educators Rendezvous 2016
July 2016 Earth Educators Rendezvous 2015
July 2015 BASICS Interest
EDDIE Module Development Mentors
GETSI Community
ICON Leadership Team
InTeGrate Materials Developers
Integrate/GETSI 2023 Survey
NAGT All
Redlining Education and Change Coalition
Serving Our Communities
Teach the Earth
GETSI Interest Group
NAGT Webinar Series Interest
Earth Educators' Rendezvous Interest Group
Education Icon
ICON Education Interest List
ICON Writing Leads
Workshop Leader (8 workshops)
January 2022Project EDDIE Building Quantitative Literacy Through Science, Education, and Art Workshop AGU 2021
December 2021Project EDDIE Module Adoption Workshop September 2021
November 2021
Workshop Participant (16 workshops)
October 2021 Project EDDIE Module Development Workshop 2019
October 2019 Engaging Environmental Justice in Geoscience Courses
December 2018













