ONLINE EARTH SCIENCE EDUCATION RESOURCES FROM THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Through its National Center for Science Literacy, Education and Technology, the American Museum of Natural History has created a rich array of Earth science education resources for children, the general public and teachers.  These materials highlight scientists in the field, include cutting-edge data visualizations of Earth and the Solar System, and feature recent developments in the natural world.  Many of these resources, which include essays, images, videos and interactive simulations, leverage ongoing research within the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Museum as well as exhibitions and specimens from the Museum's collections – including the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth. The online resources featured include Ology (free website for children age 7 and up), Science Bulletins (free current science research Web site for the general public), Resources for Learning (free searchable database of educational resources) and Seminars on Science (online graduate courses for teachers).  All of these resources are produced through close collaboration between research scientists and an educational technology team with the goal of connecting audiences with authentic scientific research and current science content.  The genesis of these projects, their underlying strategies and their implementation will be reviewed. In each of these standards-based projects, we engage learners in Earth science content in contexts appropriate for each audience.  For example, elementary school-aged children can read scientist interviews and download instructions for building weather stations and making 'edible Earths'.   Teens and adults can watch videos, explore interactives and read essays about topics such as tsunamis, melting tropical glaciers and the North Atlantic Oscillation.  K-12 educators can search through a Web database by key concept, grade level, and resource type, where they access videos, simulation and other media. Finally, K-12 teachers across the country enroll in two of the Museum's regularly offered online, semester-equivalent graduate courses – Earth: Inside and Out and The Ocean System: Integrated Science that are offered as part of the Museum's online teacher professional development program Seminars on Science. A CD of Earth science resources from the Museum will be provided to attendees.