Changes Coming to NAGT Publications

Mike Taber (Colorado College), NAGT President

My Fellow NAGT Members,

Fall is here and with it the new academic year. This fall NAGT is engaged in some major changes to strengthen our service to you. For the past two years, the Journal of Geoscience Education (JGE) has transformed into a publication that focuses on geoscience education research and curriculum and instruction, as well as commentary articles. As a result, old aspects of JGE, including textbook reviews, teaching tips, and field trip and laboratory pedagogies are missed by some NAGT members. To address concerns about the changes to JGE, the NAGT executive committee has implemented some new, exciting changes to our society's publications.

First, beginning in February 2011 the Journal of Geoscience Education will become a fully online publication hosted on the award-winning C3 platform developed by the American Institute of Physics. AIP will partner with us to produce and publish JGE on-line. We are able to make this transformation without increasing the cost of membership. As part of your member dues, you will receive on-line access to four issues per year of articles on curriculum and instruction, educational research, and commentary. In addition, bound, print versions of the four journal issues will be available to members for an additional $35 dollars. International members wishing to receive the print journal will pay an addition $20 to help offset international postage. The issues will be published in February, May, August and November.

Second, we are moving forward with a new print mini-magazine, "In the Trenches." This 4-color publication will be sent to all members at no additional cost. In the Trenches will have a lead article accompanied by but not limited to learning labs, teaching tips, web-resources, classroom quips and pertinent NAGT news. We also hope In the Trenches will be a useful publication for the K-12 community.

David Steer has agreed to be the founding editor for In the Trenches. He describes his vision for the magazine in the article below. We hope that this new publication will capture some of the 'fun' reading about teaching and the classroom tips that some of you are missing from JGE. The first issue of In the Trenches is slated for publication in January 2011.

I welcome your ideas for continuing to improve NAGTs publications. I hope that you will enjoy this new approach.