NAGTNews - Vol 15 - No 5 - May 2016

An archive of past NAGTNews message is available to members at http://serc.carleton.edu/mailman/listinfo/nagt.
View online supplements for In the Trenches at http://nagt.org/nagt/publications/trenches/index.html.
Like NAGT on Facebook to follow all the goings on of members around the country: https://www.facebook.com/nagt1.
Don't forget to check the website (http://nagt.org) for news on a continual basis.

1. NAGT Officer Elections Are Coming!

We want to give members a heads-up that the 2016 Office Elections will be starting soon. We are finalizing the slate of candidates for association and division officers and you will be receiving an email about the start of voting in the very near future. Keep an eye out for details and voting instructions and then make your voice heard!

2. 2016 NGSS Webinar Series

NAGT continues to collaborate with AGI on a series of webinars relating to issues surrounding the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Upcoming events include:

• Building a State Coalition for NGSS-ESS
  Ed Geary (Western Washington University)
  May 12, 2016
  1:00 PM Pacific | 2:00 PM Mountain | 3:00 PM Central | 4:00 PM Eastern 
  Registration Deadline: Tuesday, May 10, 2016

3. Upcoming NAGT Award Program Deadline: Outstanding TA Award

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award

NAGT recognizes outstanding teaching assistants in geoscience education twice a year with up to 30 awards annually. Both undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants are eligible for the award. Award winners receive a one year membership in NAGT, which includes an online subscription to the Journal of Geoscience Education and our In The Trenches quarterly magazine. Nominations for the Summer 2016 Awards are due by June 15, 2016.

4. Call for Outstanding Adjunct Nominees

We are quickly approaching the end of another academic year, which means it is a perfect time to recognize those colleagues who have been instrumental in making your geoscience departments a success during the last year. Please consider nominating your adjunct geoscience instructors to be recognized by the Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Award from the NAGT Geo2YC Division. Self-nominations are also welcomed, so don't be shy! We want to hear about all the good work and engaging opportunities you have created for your students.

Nominations may be submitted at the website listed below, and must be received by Friday, May 6 to be considered in our final cycle of this academic year. Recall quarterly winners receive a complimentary membership to the NAGT Geo2YC Division, as well as an opportunity to win a stipend for professional development from Pearson Publishing.

http://nagt.org/nagt/divisions/2yc/oafa.html

Hope to hear from you soon,
The Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Award Committee

5. Earth Educators' Rendezvous 2016 News

We have had an overwhelming response to our early bird registration deadline! If you haven't registered, there is still plenty of time (although many a.m. workshops are filling).
http://serc.carleton.edu/earth_rendezvous/2016/registration.html

On the website, you can now find full information on the 29 workshops, 8 panel discussions, 2 plenaries, one concluding town hall and more than 130 contributed presentations/teaching demonstrations. If the contributed program inspires you, it is not too late to submit an abstract for a poster or teaching demonstrations that will show how your work contributes to the discussion. Oral and poster sessions alike are designed to support discussion, interaction and synthesis. We will accept late poster and teaching demonstration submissions until May 15 (or until full).
http://serc.carleton.edu/earth_rendezvous/2016/program/contributed_program.html

Earn $500 by applying to one of our pre-Rendezvous review camps on the Sunday preceding the Rendezvous (July 17). The deadline for applications is May 15.
http://serc.carleton.edu/earth_rendezvous/2016/review_camp.html

Join us in Madison!

6. 2016 InTeGrate Professional Development Webinar Series Continues

The InTeGrate spring 2016 webinar series is a free and public webinar series aimed at helping faculty teach about the Earth in the context of societal issues. The series is aimed at promoting broad adoption of teaching aligned with InTeGrate principles, using InTeGrate-developed materials such as courses and teaching modules as tools. The series also highlights examples from departments and programs that are implementing InTeGrate teaching modules across the country.

Currently scheduled webinars are listed below, but keep an eye on the InTeGrate Workshops and Webinars page for additional information and registration materials as they become available.

Working with Diverse Students on Societally Relevant Geoscience Issues 
Wednesday, May 11, 2016 
11:00 am Pacific | 12:00 pm Mountain | 1:00 pm Central | 2:00 pm Eastern 
Registration deadline: Monday, May 9, 2016

Making Change Happen at your Institution: How to Overcome Practical Challenges and Build Momentum
Friday, May 27, 2016
10:00 am Pacific | 11:00 am Mountain | 12:00 pm Central | 1:00 pm Eastern 
Registration deadline: Wednesday, May 24, 2016

7. Registration is Open for an InTeGrate Workshop at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting

Attending the ESA annual meeting and interested in a workshop to expand your teaching about sustainability?

Teaching Science in Society: Building Relevance and Interest for Undergraduates by Adding InTeGrate Resources to your Class
Sunday, August 7, 2016: 12-5 PM
As part of the Ecological Society of America Annual meeting 
Cost: $30. Register today at the ESA meeting website

8. InTeGrate is Pleased to Announce the Publication of a New Teaching Module: Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts

Introducing Cli-Fi: Climate Science in Literary Texts, a new teaching module that addresses both aspects of climate literacy: understanding of climate science through data analysis and interpretation, and understanding of literary tools and techniques through which climate science is portrayed. The module is designed to be completed in introductory natural science classes where literature is not typically included as well as in humanities classes where climate change science is not normally addressed. Students will engage in activities that address both climate change science and climate change literature, including graphing data, working in groups to analyze and interpret data, creating a concept map, conducting rhetorical analyses, and writing and responding to a blog.

Developed by Jennifer Hanselman, Westfield State University; Rick Oches, Bentley University; Jennifer Sliko, Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg; and Laura Wright, Western Carolina University this two to three-week teaching module is a great fit for courses in environmental science, literature, science communication, climate science, and environmental studies.

To view this and other published InTeGrate modules, visit: 
InTeGrate Teaching Materials

9. Survey of TA Training Needs and Practices in the Geosciences

Dear colleagues,

Researchers at California State University, Chico, Eastern Michigan University, and Northeastern University are conducting a survey about TA training. We aim to better understand geoscience faculty opinions about TA training needs, as well as current practices in training geoscience TAs. The survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete, and we appreciate input from all faculty members in the geosciences (broadly defined). To complete the survey, visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GeosciGTAtraining. Deadline for completion: May 16, 2016.

Dr. Katherine Ryker
Eastern Michigan University

10. Service Learning in the Geosciences: Resources to Engage Students in Projects Within their Community

While service-learning is emerging as one way to give undergraduate students hands-on opportunities, there have been few systematic efforts to examine how service-learning is being used in the geosciences and whether it has a positive impact on students. In addition, it is unclear how well research on service-learning programs in other disciplines has been leveraged to inform the design of geoscience service-learning programs. Service-Learning in Undergraduate Geosciences: A Workshop recently held in Washington DC, featured invited presentations and discussion on topics such as designing service-learning courses, assessing service-learning courses, research on service-learning, and providing training and support to faculty teaching service-learning courses. A summary of the presentations and discussions at the workshop will be published later in 2016.

Read more about the workshop in this AGU Blogosphere post by Laura Guertin: Day 2 AM – Service Learning in Undergraduate Geosciences: A Workshop. Commissioned papers, workforce links, and relevant reports can be found on the workshop's Additional Resources webpage. The Science Education Resource Center also provides additional resources for teaching as well as opportunities to join the discussion on Teaching Service Learning in the Geosciences.

11. Call for Nominations - GeoCUR Undergraduate Research Mentor Award

The Geosciences Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research (GeoCUR) is now accepting nominations for its annual award that highlights the importance of mentoring undergraduate research activities. The award annually recognizes an individual who serves as a role model for productive and transformative student-faculty mentoring relationships and for maintaining a sustained and innovative approach to the enterprise of undergraduate research.

Application information, as well as audio interviews with past recipients, can be found online at: http://geocur.org/awards/faculty-mentors/

Application deadline is June 1. Inquiries and/or nominations may be sent to Laura Guertin (guertin@psu.edu) and Erin Kraal (kraal@kutztown.edu).

12. "Capstone" Institutions Collaborate on Developing Programs to Improve STEM Success in a Liberal Arts Context

Supporting Student Success in a Liberal Arts Context

In 2012, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) awarded $50 million in grants to forty-seven small colleges and universities to recognize predominantly undergraduate institutions as incubators of new ideas and models that might be replicated by other institutions to improve how science is taught in college. Awards to eleven of the institutions that have been long-term recipients of HHMI funding with mature and successful programs were designated as "Capstone Awards."

HHMI charged Capstone Institutions* with identifying key elements that led to success. To meet this charge and associated goals of each institution, the Capstone Institutions have collaborated to compare program approaches, experiences, and activities to identify key strategies to improve and broaden access to undergraduate science education and to share efforts in a way that is as accessible and as useful as possible to other schools seeking reform to broaden access. This collaboration has revealed striking similarities in approaches taken by Capstone Institutions to improve science education, particularly in four specific areas:

• Developing Inquiry Skills: An inquiry-rich curriculum incorporates elements of research at any stage of student development. An inquiry-rich curriculum structure may be linear or iterative, but a key goal is to expose students to scientific problem-solving processes.
• Increasing Persistence of all Students in STEM: The Capstone institutions strive to achieve inclusion through an interlocking network of support, from increasing access to our institutions to supporting students once they arrive.
• Fostering Integrative or Interdisciplinary Learning: Training in science, engineering and mathematics content and skills is necessary, but not sufficient to prepare future leaders in STEM fields. Students must also gain experience in applying the knowledge and skills to complex, real world challenges. The role of integrative learning is to increase students' ability to transfer, apply and synthesize their classroom learning into coherent and usable knowledge.
• Pathways to Institutional Change: Despite the overwhelming similarity of approaches to science education, development and implementation is clearly dependent on institutional context.

The newly completed and released website features detailed information from each Capstone Institution about its programming via an [link /liberalarts/capstones/index.html institutional profile']. In addition, a synthesis of lessons learned in each of the four areas has been constructed from the experiences of all the institutions.

The overarching goal in producing this web-based project is to support others aiming to adopt, adapt, or create similar programs, in an effort to improve higher education for all students. For more information on changes underway in higher education we recommend For Higher Ed: SERC's Portal to Resources for Faculty, Departments and Institutions.

*Capstone Institutions include three historically black colleges and universities (Morehouse, Spelman, and Xavier) and five single-sex colleges (one men's college, Morehouse, and four women's colleges—Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Smith, and Spelman). Capstones are situated in locales ranging from large cities (Barnard, CUNY Hunter, Morehouse, Spelman, and Xavier) to suburbia (Bryn Mawr, Hope, Smith, and Swarthmore) and the rural Midwest (Carleton, Grinnell).

---

Rock and Mineral Exchange

Available Samples

• Petrology Samples

Are you looking for new specimens for your collection? Do you have extra samples to share with colleagues? 
Post in the Rock and Mineral Exchange.

---

Community Advertisements

Director of Education, Earth Lab - CU Boulder

Posted: Apr 4 2016

Key to Earth Lab's mission is training a new generation of data scientists who can apply their knowledge to addressing outstanding Earth Science questions. The Director of Education will take a leadership role in developing this new education initiative.

Graduate Assistantship in Water Resources Education/Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) - University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Posted: Mar 24 2016

12-month (renewable) graduate assistantship in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources. The position involves water resources education and education research through a new project (recommended for funding by the National Science Foundation) focused on fostering undergraduate students' science literacy about water.

Need help getting the word out about your position opening, event, or field trip? Advertise with NAGT!