CI-TEAM Demo: Cyber-Infrastructure Digital Education and Research (CIDER)

University Of New Hampshire, Durham NH

Investigators

Abstract

The Complex Systems Research Center (CSRC) at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) is creating a cyber-enabled center of learning for Earth System Science (ESS). The project builds on many years of research in global biogeochemical cycles and extending the research for geospatial teaching and community engagement. The project is developing the central map-based CIDER portal by joining together existing data systems with new Web2.0 technologies to examine the effectiveness of cyber-based learning environments (Wikis, VoiceThread, Camtasia, Jing, Screencast, Concept Mapping) and handheld mobile applications as scientific research tools for teaching ESS concepts in classrooms. The project will engage undergraduate technology students in the portal design and development process. These CI resources will be used by a Working Group of middle and high school teachers who will develop and carry out field-based pilot projects with their students in collaboration with a CSRC researcher who is studying conditions such as phenology (the study of biological phenomena interacting with climate), forest cover, and understory that promote the occurrence of Lyme disease in the Northeast. Pilot projects will involve taking repeat digital photographs of the landscape based on their Digital Earth Watch and Picture Post protocols, and collecting and analyzing data and satellite imagery. The primary learning goals are to help students connect their understanding of technology as social media to its function as a research tool; understand the role that future technologies and applications will play in Earth System Sciences; understand the relationship between scientific data and visual images; and that data collected by a network of participants at many different locations can be used to understand the "big picture". The project's focus is on capturing digital technologies as a means of helping people connect with and learn about their environment. Although the center is enabled by cyberinfrastructure, the center activities are aimed at getting young people outdoors to use handheld devices as scientific research tools for monitoring the natural environment around them, and to provide opportunities for student-scientist partnerships and service-learning, ultimately leading to an informed citizenry empowered through their experience to become local experts and community leaders. Intellectual Merit: The CIDER learning center is an outgrowth of the PI's experiences in teacher professional development, creating and maintaining a robust cyberinfrastructure within the mission of a research university to both teach and support research, and in extending otheir research to the community-at-large. CIDER will provide a dynamic learning environment in which a wide range of learners can pursue their own interests by accessing resources such as data and visualizations from a controlled source. The project addresses the affective aspects of cyberlearning using technology to increase participant access to, and comfort with, science, to make communication between and among participants and program staff more fluid, and to expand participant understanding of how contemporary science is conducted. Results from the demonstration project will help position the CIDER learning center as a bridge between technology, place-based education, service learning, and scientific research. Broader Impacts Engaging students in the CIDER learning center brings scientists, students, educators and professionals into a partnership that they likely would not participate in otherwise. CIDER will expand the workforce potential in geospatial technologies by engaging students in technologically enabled monitoring of local environmental conditions, and connecting their knowledge to an understanding of regional and global change. Job sectors that depend on geospatial data include urban planning, natural resource management, transportation, agriculture, health and energy. Results of the pilot projects will be disseminated at regional and national science teacher association meetings and science professional societies and CIDER will become a part of a larger UNH teacher professional development program within the new UNH Center for Excellence in Geosciences Education.