Contents

• Resource of interest: SEACOOS
• Professional development opportunities: Cutting Edge Workshop series
• Update on DLESE Quality process
• JCDL 2005 Call for Papers
• Coming up: AGU Fall Meeting, DLESE reception
• DLESE Data Services Workshop 2005: Call for Interest
• Outreach happenings
• Science & Technology Awards 2004

Resource of interest - SEACOOS

Catch the SEACOOS Wave! The SEACOOS virtual classroom offers a variety of materials for learning about many aspects of waves including their effect on the natural and man-made world. A poster, lesson plans, real-time data and interactive models, as well as a basic fact sheet are available. A Powerpoint presentation offers an introduction to wave data and using episodic wave data for inquiry lessons. National Science Education Standards (NSES) and selected state standards are associated with the lesson plans and activities.

Professional development opportunities: 2005 Cutting Edge Workshop series

Now is a good time to begin planning to take advantage of educator professional development opportunities offered in Summer 2005. The NAGT/DLESE-sponsored Cutting Edge Workshop series for 2005 includes a variety of topics and venues of interest to current and prospective undergraduate educators. Workshops are scheduled from mid-May through July, 2005, for both face-to-face and online opportunities. Topics include

• Understanding What Our Geoscience Students Are Learning: Observing and Assessing
  May 12-14, 2005, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
• Designing Effective and Innovative Courses in the Geosciences
  Virtual Workshop: May 23 - June 23, 2005, online
  Face-to-face Workshop: June 1-5, 2005, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA
• Early Career Faculty Workshop: Teaching, Research and Managing Your Career
  June 8-13, 2005, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
• Teaching About the Ocean System Using New Research Techniques: Data, Models and Visualization
  July 6-9, 2005, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
• Teaching Hydrogeology in the 21st Century
  July 23-28, 2005, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
• Preparing for an Academic Career in the Geosciences
  July 21-24, 2005, Penn State University, State College, PA

See the Cutting Edge website for more information on each workshop, including registration information and deadlines. You may also recommend future workshop topics (by December 27, 2004) and obtain access to resources from previous Cutting Edge workshops. Cutting Edge Workshops are sponsored by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT), DLESE, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

For other interesting K-12 professional development opportunities, check out Workshops, under DLESE News & Opportunities, from the DLESE home page.

Update on DLESE Quality process

Work continues on developing the quality plan and a suite of related policy recommendations for review by the DLESE Steering Committee. The quality team is integrating the guidance from the working group white papers and the analysis of those white papers and the draft quality plan provided by participants at the October 2004 Quality Workshop, to generate an integrated and substantive set of recommendations for enhancing the overall quality of DLESE. The recommendations that the Steering Committee will consider will initially be distributed on the library quality email list, and directly to all participants involved in the quality evaluation process in mid- to late December. We welcome comments and further discussion to inform the Steering Committee deliberations via the library quality email list, or by directly contacting DLESE Executive Director, Michelle Hall. To join the library quality email list, go to Find/Join a Group, select Library quality from the drop-down menu, and select Subscribe/Unsubscribe.

JCDL 2005 Call for Papers

The 2005 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) will take place in Denver, June 7-11. A major forum for digital library research, the theme of JCDL 2005 is Digital Libraries: Cyberinfrastructure for Research and Education. Focusing on the intersection and interdependence of research and education, and their interweaving with an increasingly complex infrastructure of distributed computer, information, and communication technology—both technical and social—this conference will be of great interest to geoscience educators, scientists, and technology specialists. The importance of cyberinfrastructure for the geosciences is most recently summarized in the newly released Geoscience Education and Cyberinfrastructure, a report of an NSF-funded workshop held in April 2004. The JCDL 2005 Call for Papers is now available and important dates to be aware of are:

• January 27, 2005: Full articles, papers, and tutorial proposals due
• February 10, 2005: Short articles, poster, demonstrations, and workshop proposals
• April 5, 2005: Revision deadline for accepted articles and abstracts

Co-sponsored annually by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE), JCDL 2005 is jointly hosted by DLESE, the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), and the Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, and will take place at the at the Denver Marriott City Center. Please see the JCDL 2005 website for complete information.

Coming up - AGU Fall meeting, DLESE reception

The 2004 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) is fast approaching! Taking place in San Francisco at the Moscone Center from 13-17 December, AGU gathers 10,000 researchers, teachers, and students to review the latest research and issues from all the geophysical sciences. A special focus session SF43B-04 on Thursday, December 16 at 2:25 PM is titled: Digital Libraries as a Component of Cyberinfrastructure: DLESE and the NSDL as Examples of Providing a Knowledge Layer to CI (Wright, Marlino). Three poster sessions include:

• Using the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) to Facilitate a Fuller Understanding of the Earth through Comparisons with Other Planetary Bodies (Ledley); ED13D-0739, 1:40 PM, Monday, December 13, MCC level 2.
• DLESE Teaching Box Pilot Project: Developing a Replicable Model for Collaboratively Creating Innovative Instructional Sequences Using Exemplary Resources in the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) (Weingroff); ED21B-0064, 8:00 AM, Tuesday, December 14, MCC level 1.
• DLESE Teaching Boxes and Beyond: A promising prototype for structuring web services to support concept- and inquiry-based STEM learning and interdisciplinary partnerships (Davis, et al.); ED43B-0274, 1:40 PM, Thursday, December 16, MCC level 1.

DLESE Reception at AGU

DLESE will also host a reception at AGU on Thursday, December 16, from 6:15 - 7:45 pm at the San Francisco Marriott Hotel, across from the convention center, at 55 Fourth Street, in the Nob Hill B&C rooms. Come join colleagues and friends!

DLESE Data Services Workshop 2005 Call for Interest

The 2005 DLESE Data Services Workshop will be held April 18-20, 2005 at the Beaver Run Resort and Conference Center in Breckenridge, Colorado. Sponsored by DLESE Data Services, the workshop is a great opportunity for data providers, tool developers, scientists, curriculum developers, and educators to work closely with one another to further the effective use of data in education. To find out more, visit the workshop web page and complete the Call for Interest, which remains available until January 28, 2005.

Outreach happenings

October and November were packed with meetings and conferences—the DLESE exhibit booth covered many miles this fall, with appearances at the California Science Education Conference in San Jose; the Colorado Association of Libraries (CAL) and Mountain Plains Library Association Joint Conference and the 2004 Technology + Leadership + Learning (T+L2) conference, both in Denver; the Louisiana Science Teachers Association (LSTA) meeting in Lafayette; and the National Middle School Association Conference in Minneapolis. DLESE also co-hosted an educator reception at the Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting in Denver in early November.

A strong DLESE presence was evident at the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) annual meeting in Chicago, from November 14-17. The meeting theme was Designing Strategies for Success. Crit labs, panel sessions, workshops, special interest groups (SIGS), and posters offered numerous opportunities to demonstrate the strong ties and collaborations between DLESE and NSDL projects. DLESE leadership in developing and adapting technologies such as web services and annotation services, as well as assistance in policy guidance, were acknowledged by meeting participants.

Science & Technology Awards 2004

DLESE users will be interested in the Science & Technology Web Awards 2004. Announced each year by Scientific American, the awards distinguish outstanding web sites in scientific and technological fields. A number of these award-winning sites are available via DLESE, including: NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission (find other DLESE resources related to the Mars landings at DLESE's Teachable Topics site); Bad Astronomy; Understanding Evolution (featured as the DLESE March 2004 Resource of Interest); Digimorph (Digital Morphology); Common Molecules Collection; NOAA: Hurricanes; How Volcanoes Work (and other sites from Howstuffworks). Those sites not already in DLESE have been suggested as sites to catalog into the collection.