Collaborative Research: Improving sustainability of InTeGrate-GETSI modules through development and implementation of a Community Contribution Tool

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This project aims to serve the national interest by extending the lifespan of teaching materials shared by thousands of geoscience educators that are published online on the Teach the Earth website. Materials are freely available for instructors to use, and many include data sets that were originally compiled by materials' authors. This project will create and implement the use of a Community Contribution Tool (CCT) to facilitate updates to curricular materials, so they maintain their currency and relevance to students. The CCT will provide a mechanism for the online materials to be continually refreshed by instructor users and will support ongoing community building efforts among geoscience educators. This project will also host a workshop in which faculty participants will test the use of the CCT as they contribute updates to a suite of commonly used, high quality peer-reviewed materials that were created through previous NSF funding and published online in 2013-2019. The importance of this project is that the CCT will be made available to faculty to contribute updates, such as data sets, to existing and future online teaching materials submitted to the Teach the Earth website. This will benefit thousands of instructors and their students, who will have access to data-rich teaching resources that are current and relevant. The CCT will significantly contribute to ongoing efforts in the development and use of curricula that engage students in building data analysis skills that are essential to students' preparation for the STEM workforce.The goals of this project are to create and test a new tool that will be available for geoscience instructors to update data sets and suggest modifications for curriculum materials that are published on the Teach the Earth (TTE) website. The Community Contribution Tool (CCT) will allow users to upload files, such as updated data sets and related resources, thus providing a mechanism to extend the currency and relevance of the data and curriculum. Other contributions could include the use of targeted regional data sets or adaptations for different course formats. The CCT will be tested by a group of workshop participants who will use the tool to update curricular modules that were developed through the NSF-funded InTeGrate (and affiliated) programs and were published in 2013-2019. Updated data sets will significantly extend the utility lifespan of the shared online materials. The workshop will also include faculty professional development in designing sustainable curricular resources. Once tested in the workshop, the CCT will be made available for use with other curricula posted on TTE so that existing and future materials can also be updated through a crowd-sourced mechanism. The CCT will make evident the revision history of contributions linked to activities to clearly identify the original, and newly contributed, components. Expected outcomes of this project include 1) developing and thoroughly testing the CCT to make new and existing data-rich educational resources sustainable with updates that result in their long-term viability and 2) updating and revising InTeGrate and related modules with more current data sets for use by faculty and their students. Project outcomes will be reported in subsequent geoscience education conference sessions to inform the community and publicize the CCT. This project will enhance instructors’ use of data-rich curriculum to engage students in building their skills using data sets, which supports preparing students for the STEM workforce. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.