PROVIDING ACCESS TO PLATE BOUNDARY OBSERVATORY (PBO) DATA FOR SECONDARY AND COLLEGE AUDIENCES THROUGH WORKSHOPS, CLASSROOM RESOURCES, AND THE WEB

Two significant challenges facing the EarthScope community include providing educational audiences with access to timely EarthScope science and presenting complex data and principles in useable language and accessible formats. The Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), administered by UNAVCO, is the geodetic component of EarthScope whose data provide insight into crustal deformation in western North America. In the context of the PBO Nucleus education program, UNAVCO and its collaborators broaden the use of EarthScope data by developing data-rich instructional materials for secondary and college classrooms, building sustainable networks of scientists and teachers engaged in education and outreach, disseminating products to educational audiences, and providing professional development opportunities for users.

We will discuss several program elements that promote the use of PBO data by secondary and college educational audiences. Our Master Teacher Program is an initiative designed to involve a secondary Earth science teacher in UNAVCO education and outreach. This year's master teacher, a 7th grade Earth and space science teacher, spent two weeks at UNAVCO headquarters creating two classroom activities that involve students working with authentic PBO data. Topics included episodic tremor and slip in the Cascadia subduction zone and an introduction to using GPS to measure plate tectonics. In August, we held an EarthScope Cascadia curriculum development pilot workshop during which teams of scientists, teachers, and curriculum developers identified the EarthScope science topics most applicable to secondary Earth science curricula and began creating a framework for instructional materials. We also held a workshop for college faculty at this week's GSA fall meeting. Finally, an educational portal to PBO data is being developed on existing PBO station homepages to disseminate the products from the Master Teacher Program and the Cascadia workshop. We will also discuss the importance of program evaluation and strategies for fostering sustainability.