Collaborative Research: A synthesis of EarthScope educational resources integrated into the "Alaska Native Geoscience Learning Experience"

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Alaska experiences more earthquake and volcanic activity than any other US state, and many Alaskan communities are unusually remote and will potentially be isolated from support during a natural disaster. The EarthScope Alaska Native Geoscience Learning Experience (EarthScope ANGLE) aims to increase Alaskan resilience to geohazards through education and building of an action oriented statewide learning community that connects formal and informal educators, emergency management personnel, scientists, students, community elders and other organizations in rural villages. The great earthquakes and tsunamis that devastated Sumatra on December 26, 2004, Chile on February 27, 2010 and Japan on March 11, 2011 have heightened public concern about similar geologic hazards in our own country. As part of a nationwide effort to study earthquakes and the Earth's crust, the NSF EarthScope Program has been deploying hundreds of seismic, GPS, and other geophysical instruments across the United States. Recently deployed in Alaska, these instruments provide detail for ongoing research showing that coastal regions are storing energy that will be released in great earthquakes, with resulting tsunamis that may impact the entire west coast of the US and Hawaii. Thousands of Alaskan residents live within severe earthquake-shaking and tsunami-inundation zones, and millions of tourists visit state and federal parks in these same areas each year. Teachers in the K-12 school systems convey some basics about geological hazards to their students, and park rangers and museum educators likewise engage visitors at their sites. Both of these groups also at times work with emergency managers. ANGLE is strengthening these efforts by providing community-based workshops that bring together all of these professionals to review the basic science of earthquakes and tsunamis, learn about EarthScope and other research efforts that monitor the dynamic Earth in the region, and develop ways to collectively engage students and the general public on the mitigation of coastal geologic hazards.The ANGLE project is a collaborative effort among geoscience educators from Alaska Pacific University and Central Washington University with the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP) at the University of Alaska Anchorage. From 2017-2020, four Educator Professional Development workshops and eight ANSEP academies for Alaska Native students will be conducted. Through these workshops and academies, ANGLE establishes a statewide network of stakeholders that includes students, teachers and Native Elders from rural Alaska Native villages, some of Alaska's most vulnerable communities. The emphasis on educators and Native students will ensure that a wide variety of learners will be reached, either directly or by later contact with ANGLE participants. A synthesis of existing EarthScope educational materials and methods, translated to an Alaskan setting, will form the core of the programming. Drawing from methods of previous EarthScope education projects, ANGLE will incorporate best practices including societal relevance of science, data collection and analysis, nature of science, learning community development, current science standards, and place-based and cultural knowledge. Participating educators will learn about ongoing research on Alaskan tectonics, earthquakes and tsunamis, and about how EarthScope is advancing frontiers of knowledge about geologic hazards in the region. Emergency management outreach leaders will contribute to discussions on emergency preparedness actions. Master teachers offer pedagogical guidance and ideas about assessment and interaction, while experienced interpreters discuss how to reach a variety of audiences in settings outside the classroom. In follow-up share-a-thons, the teachers and interpreters showcase how they have crafted their new knowledge into Earth science and emergency preparedness learning experiences for K-12 students and visitors to parks and museums. Ultimately thousands of learners in various settings will be reached. The final ANGLE-synthesized collection of EarthScope resources will be hosted on the well-known Science Education Resource Center website (5 million visitors/year) and reviewed by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers insuring high profile access to the resources for years to come.