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Don Haas
Education and Outreach
Paleontological Research Institution
Don’s work in public outreach, teacher education, teacher professional development and curriculum materials development marries deep understandings of how people learn with deep understandings of the Earth system. He is a past president of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, and a nationally regarded expert in climate and energy education, place-based and technology-rich Earth and environmental science education. He has led educator professional development programming throughout the US. He also is co-author of the books,The Teacher-Friendly Guide to Climate Change and The Science Beneath the Surface: A Very Short Guide to the Marcellus Shale.He served on the Earth & Space Science Design Team for the National Research Council’s A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Don has taught at Colgate, Cornell, and Michigan State Universities, the University at Buffalo, Kalamazoo College, and Tapestry and Norwich (New York) High Schools.
Don’s research is currently focused upon determining the fundamental ideas that are most important for everyone to understand about the Earth system and how to help educators nurture understandings of those ideas. This is tightly connected to the topics of climate change and energy, and what approaches build (or fail to build) understandings that are relevant and useful for taking action. He’s grown especially interested in technology-rich place-based education — an approach that engages learners in the close study of their local environment and using these locally grounded understandings to better understand the global Earth system. With work addressing teaching and learning about hydrofracking, climate change and evolution, he has also developed expertise in the teaching of controversial issues.
Website Content Contributions
Activities (2)
Selected technical tools approaches for real and virtual fieldwork part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2018:Program:Teaching Demonstrations:Tuesday
Participants will play with a number of technical tools (primarily free or inexpensive smartphone and tablet apps) for accessing information about field sites and for documenting characteristics of those sites in ...
There's no such thing as a free megawatt: Hydrofracking as a gateway drug to energy literacy part of GeoEthics:Activities
Don Duggan-Haas, Paleontological Research Institution Summary THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. Slickwater high-volume hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking is a method for extracting oil and natural gas that ...
Essay (1)
It's too late. Let's get to work anyway. part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Earth Education for Sustainable Societies:Essays
Don Haas, Paleontological Research Institution It is too late to prevent horrible consequences of climate change, but when it's too late is when we generally get to work. We ended slavery too late. We stopped ...
Conference Presentations (4)
NAGT Diversity Committee: Seeking Input Toward Enhancing Inclusion Efforts part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2018:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday
The National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) supports a community of educators and education researchers to improve teaching and learning about the Earth. Since 1938, the Association has been working ...
Other Contributions (3)
Advocacy and Connecting with Community part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2017:Program:Roundtable Discussions
We live in polarized times. Climate change, fracking, evolution, and many more issues are mired in political conflict that are better understood through science and science education. Advocacy has a role in ...
Using the Science Literacy Documents to Guide Instruction part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Afternoon Mini Workshops
The Essential Principles and Big Ideas from the different documents listing Earth Systems Literacy Principles (for ocean, and atmospheric science, geology (a.k.a., Earth science), climate and energy) represent ...
Research on Instructional Strategies to Improve Geoscience Learning in Different Settings and with Different Technologies part of NAGT:Our Work:Geoscience Education Research:Community Framework for GER:Instructional Strategies
Download a pdf of this chapterSteven Semken, Arizona State University; Juk Bhattacharyya, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater; Don Duggan-Haas, Paleontological Research Institution; Amy Pallant, The Concord ...
Communities
Eastern Section, Geoscience Education Research Division, Teacher Education Division
July 2017 Earth Educators Rendezvous 2015
July 2015 NAGT All
Earth Educators' Rendezvous 2016
Advocacy Interest Group
NAGT Past Presidents
Earth Educators' Rendezvous Interest Group
Workshop Leader
Workshop Participant (15 workshops)
June 2021 Communicating Science to the General Public
July 2018 Developing Student Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Leadership Capacity to Address Wicked Problems
July 2018
Webinar Leader
January 2023The NAGT Draft Position Statement on Climate Change Learning
February 2021NGSS-ESS Mini-series: MORE! Remote Teaching & Learning Resources, part 2
October 2020