1. Teach the Earth: Portal for Geoscience Education Resources
Cailin Huyck Orr, Sean P. Fox, and Carol J. Ormand Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College
What is the Teach the Earth Portal?
How Can You Use the Teach the Earth Portal?
Supporting teaching and learning about the Earth
The Teach the Earth website portal supports teaching and learning about the Earth by providing online resources for educators in the geosciences and related fields. The Teach the Earth portal showcases high-quality earth education materials from a wide variety of sources. Search tools make it easy to find the resources you are looking for from a wide range of projects and websites. Materials that pass rigorous review criteria rise to the top of search returns.
Strategies for searching the portal
Teach the Earth is a portal to thousands of resources from dozens of Earth Education websites. There are several ways to search for resources to support your teaching:
If you are looking for something specific, you can simply type a keyword or phrase into the search box.
You can search for particular types of resources by category, such as “teaching materials” for activities or courses; “intro geo” for materials appropriate to an introductory geoscience course; “two-year colleges” for materials specifically developed for 2YCs, and so on.
You can choose a theme from the list of more than 50 options, sorted by course topics, societal issues, teaching environments, and pedagogical topics.
Once you’ve initiated a search, you can narrow the range of search returns using our faceted search tool. So, for example, if you start by searching all teaching activities, you can then refine your search by subject.
Built by instructors for instructors
Features of the Teach the Earth site include opportunities to browse key resources by resource type (activities, workshops, for target audiences etc.), by a broad range of topical themes that draw from both the Earth and allied fields, as well as topics related to strengthening your teaching, strengthening your department or program and working in specific academic environments. These themes reflect priorities of the geoscience education community and how educators report looking for materials.
How Can You Support Teach the Earth?
Image credit: NASA
Resources from the community
Teach the Earth resources include classroom activities, course descriptions and syllabi, information about teaching strategies, topical collections, and more. This collection of teaching materials encompasses more than 5,000 activities and more than 850 course descriptions from across Earth-related disciplines, all contributed by educators who teach about the Earth.
Reviewed by the community
The National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) coordinates peer review processes, for both individual activities and entire websites. This peer review ensures that the Teach the Earth portal serves as a gateway to the highest quality earth education materials. The annual review camp happens in association with the Earth Educators’ Rendezvous. Reviewers are paid a stipend to compensate them for their time and their work.
Join the community
Teach the Earth grows out of the community of Earth Educators who share our activities and resources. You can be part of this by sharing teaching materials, joining a review camp, or attending a workshop, webinar, or other professional development event such as the Earth Educators’ Rendezvous.
Participants in the 2017 Earth Educators’ Rendezvous