NAGTNews - Vol 13 - No 5 - May 2014

An archive of past NAGTNews message is available to members at http://serc.carleton.edu/mailman/listinfo/nagt.
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1. NAGT Elections

It is time once again for our annual election of NAGT officers, for both our national officers and our division officers. NAGT's election process uses a nominating committee to review officer candidates and the names on your ballot reflect the committees work. You also have the option of writing in a candidate for any office. The election will run through June 7th.

Election Ballot and survey:
National officer bios: http://nagt.org/nagt/news/2014elections.html
Geo2YC Division officer bios: http://nagt.org/nagt/news/20142ycelections.html
Geoscience Education Research Division officer bios: http://nagt.org/nagt/news/2014gerdelections.html
Teacher Education Division officer bios: http://nagt.org/nagt/news/2014tedelections.html

Also this year we a running a member survey along with the elections. You will find the survey and the end of the ballot. We are very interested in your feedback on our membership services and our publications, so please take a few minutes to complete the survey.
Thank you very much for your participation in both the election and the survey!

2. NAGT Program Deadlines

Several NAGT Award and Professional Development Programs have upcoming nomination deadlines.

Outstanding Earth Science Teacher (OEST) Awards
OEST awards are given for "exceptional contributions to the stimulation of interest in the Earth Sciences at the pre-college level." Any teacher or other K-12 educator who covers a significant amount of earth science content with their students is eligible. Ten national finalists are selected, one from each NAGT regional section. Some sections also recognize state winners. Individuals may apply themselves or nominate a colleague for the award.

The selection of award winners is conducted at the Section level and each Section sets its own deadline for nomination. A listing of the deadlines and contact people for each Section is listed on the program website. The last round of Section deadlines is May 15. So check out your Section's deadline and get your nominations in via the website.

NAGT Outstanding TA Award Nominations
Each year, NAGT recognizes outstanding teaching assistants in geoscience education with up to 30 awards annually. Both undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants are eligible for the award. Award winners receive an one year membership in NAGT, which includes an online subscription to the Journal of Geoscience Education and the new In The Trenches quarterly magazine.

For more information about the award and how to nominate your teaching assistant, see the program page.

Deadline for nominations is June 15.

3. April In the Trenches

You should be receiving your April In the Trenches very soon. Be sure to check out the online supplement for this issue at http://nagt.org/nagt/publications/trenches/issues/apr14.html.

4. International Conference on Geoscience Education (7th GeoSciEd), India, 5-9 Sept '14

Greetings from India!

The International Geoscience Education Organization (IGEO; http://www.igeoscied.org/), an affiliated organization of the International Union of the Geological Sciences, has the motto of promoting Earth Science education worldwide. One of the activities is the quadrennial International Conference on Geoscience Education (GeoSciEd). This conference has been successful in the past in bringing together leading academicians, scientists, researchers, graduate students and others whose mandate/interest is to promote geoscience education at the school-, college- and university-levels and among the general public on a single platform and facilitate intellectual interactions and discussions. The 7th edition of GeoSciEd is being organized in Hyderabad, India during September 5-9, 2014. We invite you to participate and present your contributions at this conference. Geoscience is an umbrella term that includes solid earth, atmosphere, oceans and astronomy.

We are attaching the 1st circular that gives details of the conference. Kindly share it with colleagues at your institution/organization and also forward it to your friends and colleagues in the region.

Looking forward to your participation and presentation at the 7th GeoSciEd Conference in Hyderabad, India.

Yours sincerely

Prof R Shankar
Mangalore University

5. National Fossil Day Art and Photography Contest 2014

Dear National Fossil Day Partners,

We are excited to announce this year's National Fossil Day (NFD) Art and Photography Contest. The theme for the contest this year is Fossil Neighborhoods. Imagine you could travel back in time with any fossil, and have it show you around its neighborhood. What might that have looked like? What other ancient organisms did it live with? Use your knowledge of the fossil you choose to reconstruct the ancient ecosystem – its home – in which it thrived.

Please visit the Art and Photography Contest page on the National Fossil Day website for the full rules and the official entry form: [https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fossilday/index.htm]

We encourage you to share this information and the website for the NFD Art and Photography Contest with schools and other groups in your local area or for who you provide educational support.

As always, we thank you for your continuing support and enthusiasm for National Fossil Day.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact Cassi Knight, National Fossil Day coordinator.

Email - cassi_knight@nps.gov
Office Phone – (928)638-7484

6. 2014 ESIP Summer Meeting Announcement - July 8-11, Frisco, CO

The Federation for Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), of which our organization is a member, is having their 2014 Summer Meeting in Frisco, CO at Copper Mountain. The theme of this meeting is "Linking It Together: Sustainable Software Advancing Science Data and Services" and will include a variety of activities supporting this theme for all levels of, including:

• Keynote plenaries on software sustainability from multiple perspectives (data center, science and entrepreneurial)
• Breakout sessions on software metrics, attribution of software and source code and building community around a software package
• Half-day training on Agile software development practices and a session on Agile in use around the ESIP Federation
• 2-daySoftware Carpentry bootcamp which will teach researchers basic lab skills for scientific computing: the tools and techniques that will help them get more done in less time, and with less pain. Covers Unix Shell, Python or R, Git and Github and SQL. Great for scientist wanting to beef up their technical skills!
• Additional opportunities to present your work in sessions proposed and at the poster session the evening of July 9

Meeting registration is open now. For our organization, the member early bird rate is $400 for the week, $200 for a single day and $250 for just the Software Carpentry Bootcamp. We also have reserved a small block of rooms at Copper, $92/night for Fed and $120/night for non-Fed.

For all details and if you have additional questions, feel free to email Erin Robinson, erinrobinson@esipfed.org.

7. Two New Resource Guides for Those Who Teach or Explain Astronomy

"Unheard Voices," a set of resource guides about the astronomy of many cultures and about the contributions of women to astronomy, is now available on the Multiverse web site at:

http://multiverse.ssl.berkeley.edu/Learning-Resources/Educator-Resource-Guides

The two new resource guides are designed specifically for instructors and students in introductory college science courses (such as Astro 101), but can be used by anyone who is teaching, explaining, or learning astronomy or earth and space science. Sponsored by the Heliophysics Forum of the Space Missions Directorate at NASA, the guides include written, on-line, and audio-visual materials, many of which can be used directly in the classroom, for student papers, or personal enrichment.

"Unheard Voices 1: The Astronomy of Many Cultures" features the contributions to astronomy of African, Asian, Hispanic, South Pacific, Islamic, and Native American cultures, together with a section on reports and articles for achieving greater diversity in science. (15 pages)

"Unheard Voices 2: Women in Astronomy" features sections on: the history of women in astronomy in general, materials on selected women astronomers of the past, issues facing women in astronomy today, and materials on selected contemporary women astronomers. (13 pages)

Multiverse -- formerly known as the Center for Science Education at the University of California, Berkeley -- offers a website with a wide range of resources, information, and programs, to help educators and their students learn about the universe in a more multi-cultural context.

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Rock and Mineral Exchange Posts

• Available: Fossilized rouse and massive limestone

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