The Digital Library for Earth System Education: A Community Integrator

The rapid changes in the geoscience research environment have prompted educators to request support for their efforts to reform geoscience educational practices. DLESE, the Digital Library for Earth System Education, responds to this request by providing a single point of access to high-quality educational resources for teaching about the Earth as a system. DLESE is supported by the National Science Foundation and is an operational library used by tens of thousands of educators every month. DLESE resources include a variety of media formats, from text-based lesson plans to highly-sophisticated tools for interactive three-dimensional visualization of authentic scientific data. The DLESE community is particularly interested in partnering with scientific researchers to ensure that the tools of practicing scientists become widely available to geoscience educators. Two emerging large-scale scientific efforts, the GEON project and EarthScope, provide compelling illustrations of the potential of these partnerships. Both are cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary projects that use digital tools in a distributed environment to support scientific investigation. Both have also made a deep commitment to use these same tools to support geoscience education, and both are including DLESE as part of that commitment. Our interactive presentation will allow users to discover a variety of educational resources and communication services within the library. We will highlight those library resources and services that take particular advantage of the digital media to support new modes of learning and teaching. For example, annotation tools allow educators to add tips on the most effective way to use a specific resource. Data services will help educators find and use real-time data to illustrate geoscience phenomena. Multi-dimensional visualization tools allow students to interact with authentic student data in inquiry-based learning environment. DLESE will continue to actively collaborate with scientific research efforts to ensure that the practices and tools of the research community also support the needs of geoscience learners and educators.