SERCKIT: INFRASTRUCTURE SUPPORTING THE GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION COMMUNITY

Serckit, an online platform for supporting science education projects, has evolved over the last 15 years into a key enabler for the geoscience education community. Developed by the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College, the system plays host to a wide range of geoscience education projects and provides access to teaching activities submitted by over 1300 geoscience educators.

Serckit’s features promote sharing and reuse of teaching materials among geoscience educators. Standard templates for activities and courses help structure community contributions. An integrated controlled vocabulary system allows materials to be organized and searched along dimensions from course topic, to NGSS alignment to pedagogic approach. These taxonomies drive a variety of search and recommender systems that allow geoscience educators to explore the rich set of resources their peers have contributed.

Serckit has a range of features uniquely suited to supporting geoscience education websites. Contributions can safely include ‘educator-only’ materials through a system that prevents student access, and bundles of student materials can be shared in common cartridge format for inclusion in local learning management systems. Serckit can directly host student-oriented materials with interactive elements as well as support projects in collecting and analyzing student assessment data across multiple courses and institutions.

The majority of geoscience faculty report using the resources hosted by SERC and Serckit has been the underlying platform that supports this community-wide impact. As the geoscience education community moves forward to address new challenges and improve education practice, SERC is committed to ensuring that Serckit advances with the community as a platform for sharing and educational innovation.