Digital Resource Discovery and Dynamic Learning Communities for a Changing Biology

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This NSDL Selection Services project is supporting two professional societies and a well-known university laboratory to collaboratively facilitate the discovery of high quality educational resources in the ecological, evolution and plant sciences. The intellectual merit of the project lies in its responsiveness to four demands within the ecological sciences and the broader biology community that guide the partnership and the direction of activities: 1) Demand for Quantitative Skills in Biology; 2) Demand for Digital Resource Discovery Services; 3) Demand for Community Support Services; 4) Demand for a Sustainable and Innovative Digital Library And Learning Community. Further strengthening this merit is the project's fostering of dynamic learning communities among two sets of users: 1) researchers who have resources to contribute and 2) educators from grades 7-16 who seek up to date and scientifically accurate resources for their classrooms. The project is exerting its broader impact by engaging a wide variety of faculty members, including those who are teaching lower division general biology classes in universities, community colleges and minority-serving institutions, along with biology educators in the 7-12 grade band. Furthermore, the project's "Visionary Learning Councils" provide an important prototype of future virtual learning communities that bring scientists and educators together in their search for high quality resources so that scientists understand what educators need and educators can access leading edge scientific material for their classrooms as well as give support to one another.