Read for the Earth: Connecting Formal and Informal Climate Change Education for First Year College Students

这是一个试点项目，旨在扩大和扩大利用现有的教育资源，这些资源是在国家科学基金会的支持下创建的，5年前以单独的大笔赠款提供给两个主要研究所。 这种延伸是通过一种在美国学院和大学中无处不在的课程：“新生研讨会”。“现有教育资源的信息内容符合对社会各界重要和有趣的标准。支持这一试点的材料是广泛的，多样的，并适应当地情况，以及随着新知识的出现而扩展。该项目的一个积极特点是，存在基础资源（书籍、视频、社交媒体、网站），存在交付工具（新生研讨会课程），有一位公众可见的科学家可供使用并有兴趣参与，该科学家关于气候科学的MOOC将继续提供，并可能成为当地课程的一部分。该试点项目将测试教授环境科学课程的教师对从丰富的材料中自由选择的机会的反应，这些材料可以用作课程的构建模块。它还将审查其使用对注册学生的影响。

This is a pilot project to extend and broaden utilization of existing educational resources created with support from the NSF to each of two PIs in separate large grants 5 years ago. The extension is through a type of course that has become ubiquitous across American colleges and universities: the "freshman seminar." The information content of the existing educational resources meets the criterion of being important and interesting to a broad spectrum of our society. The materials that underpin this pilot are broad, varied, and adaptable to local circumstance as well as extensible as new knowledge emerges. A positive characteristic of the project is that the base resources (book, video, social media outlets, web sites) exist, the delivery vehicles (freshman seminar courses) exist, a publicly visible scientist is available and interested in participating, and that scientist's MOOC on climate science will continue to be offered and could become part of local courses. This pilot project will test the response of faculty who teach environmental science courses to the opportunity of selecting freely from a rich set of materials that can be used as course building blocks. It will also examine the impact that their use has on enrolled students.