1. What Makes a Good K-12 Resource
Katy Ginger
DLESE Program Center (DPC)
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)

2. Primary Goal of DLESE
Facilitate learning about Earth at all educational levels, formal and informal
Strategies to Achieve This Goal
Develop high quality collections
Provide access to Earth data, imagery & tools
Create discovery and distribution systems
Provide support services to create/use materials
Facilitate communication and collaboration across all interests of Earth system education
DLESE does not hold, create or modify resources
DLESE provides access to resources by providing search over metadata
DLESE provides feedback to resource creators and review information to library users through teaching tips and various review mechanisms

3. Scope of DLESE Collection
Emphasizes Earth as a System
Study of processes, states, cycles and interactions
Global and local perspectives
Interdisciplinary connections between atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, space and biosphere
Emphasizes Education
Learning and teaching for improved understanding of Earth’s history, processes, and resources
Supports research and assessment activities

4. Collection Criteria for all Resources
Be relevant to Earth system education
Function reasonably well
Have attribution as to origin
Reflect sound scientific principles and practices and current scientific knowledge
Have an obvious and intended utility for teaching, research or learning about the Earth system
Be free of advertising that is distracting or off topic for the learner
Be free or low cost to educational users
Criteria apply to broad scope and are not K-12 specific because we didn’t want to look like a K-12 only library but K-12 is the largest audience user
DLESE requires a scope statement (describing what a collection is all about) but NSDL does not
To address K-12 needs, individual collections have been specifically developed by K-12 groups for use by K-12 groups and DLESE developed Teaching Boxes (being showcased in other NSDL sessions)

5. Collection Criteria for Reviewed Resources
Documents a process for ensuring:
Scientific accuracy
Importance or significance
Pedagogical effectiveness
Completeness of documentation
Ease of use for teachers and learners
Inspirational or motivational for learners
Robustness as a digital resource

6. DLESE Resources (Vocabulary/ Granularity)
Educational materials – classroom activity, computer activity, field activity, lab activity, tutorial, lesson plan, syllabus, curricula, course modules, field trips, problem set, demonstration, photo, visualization, webcast
Assessment and pedagogical materials - exam, quiz, self-assessment, learning/teaching technique and educational research
Research materials - journal article, summary, abstract, case study, report, theses, policies, proceeding, bibliography, etc.
Data - Earth and space data (imagery, numeric values, map)
Annotations - comments, reviews, teaching tips, additional content
News and opportunities - information on grants, conferences, workshops, professional development, opportunities, etc.
Tools - software or applications for interacting, accessing, manipulating or viewing, calculators and converters, models

7. DLESE Studies on Resource Quality/Reuse
2001 Discovery of Resources
DLESE required metadata captures much essential info. but not all
2002 K-12 Perceptions on Quality
Quality & limits on advertising should be emphasized in library policies (all)
Scientific accuracy is paramount (grades 6-12)
Age appropriateness/engaging activities is paramount (grades K-5)
Complement, don’t replicate traditional materials (all)
Label biased sites (grades 6-12)
Current state of web resource design needs to be improved (all)
Metadata should add value over the content of resources (all)
2003 Implement Nat. Science Education Stds. in Search
Use the word ‘supports’ to connect resources to standards
Pre-service teacher likely to search by standards but master teacher not
Associate standards at state or district level
2004 Preliminary Web Log Analysis
Grade range & resource type are the most often used qualifiers on search
2005 Community Review System (an annotation system)
How many have used it? Will work for my students? Is it accurate?

8. Title and URL of resource
Description
Grade levels
Resource types and Topics covered
Educational standards and related resources (NSES and Geography)
Resource creator
Other contextual info (see reviews & teaching tips) and submit your own