TIME SCAVENGERS: A DIGITAL LEARNING PLATFORM'S ADAPTATIONS TO INCREASED NEED FOR ONLINE LEARNING RESOURCES

Time Scavengers is an educational website that explains climate change and evolutionary theory. Since the website’s launch in summer 2017, we have amassed >40 static pages, hundreds of blogs from contributing authors, and cultivate three social media communities. In the early stages of the Covid-19 crisis, Time Scavengers adapted to the needs of geoscience educators and students by curating a list of online education resources, initiating an online digital internship program, and launching the Tilly Edinger Travel Grant.

Time Scavengers added a page collating online teaching resources on March 12, 2020, which includes remote teaching resources specific to geosciences. The new 'Online Teaching' has had 3,071 pageviews (0.86% of total page views since Aug. 1, 2017; 1.51% of total page views since Jan. 1, 2020).

Summer student internships were recently added as a program sponsored by Time Scavengers in summer 2020 for students who were required to have an internship for graduation or whose internships were cancelled due to Covid-19. Four University of South Florida students in the internship were required to write blog posts and create the social media graphics for both. Students wrote a total of 40 articles, gained valuable experience in tailoring language and graphics for public consumption, and learned from science and communication experts. This program will be expanded with newly acquired funding in 2022.

The Tilly Edinger Travel Grant was established to offset the financial burden of conferences for geoscience students and avocational researchers. Time Scavengers as an online community is inherently international and therefore is able to accept applications from students globally. Although many conferences were held virtually this year, so far this grant paid for the registration and abstract submission fees of 7 students and graduates, located in 6 countries, for a conference of their choice.

In many ways, the Covid-19 crisis mobilized Time Scavengers to launch programs to meet the needs of our online community and early career professionals. The Tilly Edinger Travel Grant is open to biannual applications and the internship program will continue with future iterations. Online learning underwent a critical but forced evolution in the last year and will continue to improve into the future.