Connecting Classroom Teachers and Students with Volcanologists

Volcanoes are inherently interesting to students and teachers of all grades, but their main source of information—textbooks—generally provide simplistic descriptions of complex phenomena that may not provide the stimulus to entice future research careers. We describe a program—Earth2Class that connects classroom teachers and students with investigator so they are stimulated through learning about cutting-edge discoveries, how investigators actually conduct science, and what problems might still need attention when they enter post-secondary programs.

Since 1998, the Earth2Class program at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University has provided monthly workshops that has allowed middle and high school teachers and students to come to the Lamont campus to learn directly from leading researchers about the wide variety of investigations conducted at LDEO. For teachers, such ongoing professional development enhances the basic knowledge they gained in their undergraduate or graduate studies and reminds them of what happens in "real" science, not just what shows up in textbooks. For students, the information and role models presented by the scientists can be strongly influential in making career choices. For those unable to attend in person, archived version of the slideshows and related resources are available on the E2C website (https://earth2class.org/)

Examples of presentations specific to cutting-edge research on volcanoes include:Volcanic Eruptions --How Wet? How Hot? How Fast?" (https://earth2class.org/site/?page_id=14011) and "Slab Connections in the Transmexican Volcanic Belt" (https://earth2class.org/site/?page_id=16499). This presentation will provide descriptions of these E2C workshops as examples of how similar programs can be created at other institutions, as well as share some of the important take-away points about these investigations.