Explore the Critical Zone with the CZO Resource Collection

ALEXANDRA MOORE (moore@priweb.org) is senior education associate at the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), DON DUGGAN-HAAS (dad55@cornell.edu) is PRI's director of teacher programs, DAVID LUBINSKI (david. lubinski@colorado.edu) is a research associate at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the CZO Webmaster, and ROBERT M. ROSS (rmr16@cornell.edu) is associate director for Outreach at PRI. All are also part of the Critical Zone National Office.

The goal of the CZO education program is to use the observatories as a network of living laboratories with research opportunities, professional development, teaching resources, and public outreach within a broad spectrum of media and pedagogies for learners from K-to-Gray in both formal and informal settings. Members of the network have designed online courses, run workshops for both students and teachers, and created digital media resources, films, animated features, field projects and in-class activities. Working together, the nine CZOs and the National Office have the opportunity to leverage these efforts ten-fold.

To disseminate CZ activities and raise the visibility of CZ science, the National Office of Education and Outreach team has created a reviewed collection of resources, available through a new web portal (http://criticalzone.org/national/education-outreach/resources/). Review criteria and design guidelines are available to support resource creators. On the site, graphic "cards" represent each activity, highlighting the intended audience, subject matter and type of activity (see above). A preview window provides more detail and contact info for the author, followed by a link to the resource. The intent of this collection is to provide high-quality and highly visible learning resources that can be used by educators associated with any of the nine CZ sites, as well as educators nationwide. Through these initiatives, the CZO Network hopes to provide all learners with the opportunity to engage in experiential learning that is truly interdisciplinary in nature, examining Earth processes through the lens of the Critical Zone.