Digital Resource Discovery and Dynamic Learning Communities for a Changing Biology

这个NSDL选择服务项目正在支持两个专业协会和一个著名的大学实验室，以合作促进在生态，进化和植物科学中发现高质量的教育资源。该项目的智力价值在于它对生态科学和更广泛的生物学社区的四个需求的响应，这些需求指导了伙伴关系和活动的方向：1）生物学定量技能的需求; 2）数字资源发现服务的需求; 3）社区支持服务的需求; 4）可持续和创新的数字图书馆和学习社区的需求。进一步加强这一优点是该项目在两类用户中培养动态学习社区：1）有资源可供贡献的研究人员和2）为课堂寻找最新和科学准确资源的7-16年级教育工作者。该项目正在发挥其更广泛的影响，使各种各样的教职员工，包括那些谁是在大学，社区学院和少数民族服务机构教低年级普通生物课，沿着7-12年级的生物教育工作者。此外，该项目的“有远见的学习委员会”提供了未来虚拟学习社区的一个重要原型，使科学家和教育工作者聚集在一起寻找高质量的资源，使科学家了解教育工作者的需要，教育工作者可以为他们的课堂访问前沿的科学材料，并相互支持。

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.