Volume 1, Number 1

The

Geode

September 2006

The Newsletter of the Geographic Data in Education Initiative at Northwestern University In This Issue: My World GIS: An Overview My World Goes to Vietnam Learning about Social Change with GIS Bringing GIS to Teachers and Students in Appalachia Chicago Public School Students Learn about GIS and

Message from the Director Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Geode. The goal of The Geode is to keep our community of educators, collaborators, and supporters up-to-date on the activities of the GEODE Initiative. In this issue, we focus on My World GIS, one of several products of the GEODE Initiative. My World brings the power of scientists’ data visualization and analysis tools into the hands of students and teachers. My World is the most powerful software environment we have built to date, and it was the first of our Danny Edelson products to enter commercial distribution. In 2004, Northwestern entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with PASCO Scientific, a leading manufacturer and distributor of educational technology, to market My World to the educational audience worldwide. As you will see in the features in this newsletter, educators and researchers are already finding interesting and diverse uses for My World. In future issues, we will focus on other aspects of our work including curriculum development, professional development for teachers, and implementation research.

My World GIS: An Overview

GPS at Northwestern’s Lakefront Lagoon Release of My World GIS v.4 GEODE Briefs

Visit the GEODE Initiative on the web at: www.geode.northwestern.edu

In January, the GEODE Initiative and PASCO Scientific released the most recent version of My World, GIS ™. My World is the most recent product in a line of research dating back to 1992. In this work, GEODE Initiative researchers have been investigating the hypothesis that the tools that scientists use to extend human understanding can be re-designed to become tools for students to extend their personal understanding. My World is a GIS, a geographic information system, which allows users to visualize and analyze data associated with locations in the world. As a visualization environment, a GIS enables users to construct interactive maps. For example, a user might create a map displaying the location and magnitude of earthquakes and volcanoes. As a data analysis environment, a GIS allows users to conduct statistical analyses, conduct queries based on spatial relationships, and generate new data showing spatial relationships. For example, a GIS user might conduct an analysis of data to identify locations of higher and lower seismic risk.

The goal of My World is to allow students to conduct investigations with scientific data in the same way scientists do. The GEODE Initiative researchers have developed My World to support an inquiry-based approached to learning. Daniel Edelson, Director of the GEODE Initiative, characterizes this inquiry approach as having two important goals: “Conducting scientific investigations enables students to extend and reinforce their understanding of scientific concepts. Just as important, students have the opportunity to learn firsthand how scientists develop and collect evidence for hypotheses.” “Students need to have experiences engaging in science,” Edelson said. “ A nd modern science is largely done computationally. Of all the computational tools used by geoscientists, one of the most powerful is GIS.” The challenge that the GEODE Initiative has taken on with My World is transforming complex software requiring

substantial content area expertise and extensive training into tools that can be used by students with minimal content area expertise and with no dedicated training on the software. “ Professional GIS tools are designed for people who use them every day, professionals who have hundreds of hours of training,” said Edelson. “They’re not designed to be used by novices or occasional users.” The researchers have used a number of strategies to address these challenges. One strategy is to reduce the complexity of the software by selecting a subset of the functionality found in professional tools. “To select the appropriate subset,” says Edelson, “we perform an educational analysis to understand which features will provide the most value to teachers.” For example, the researchers invited teachers and curriculum developers with previous GIS experience to share what they have learned. Story continued on page 4

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THE GEODE NEWSLETTER

My World Goes to Vietnam

Students in Vietnam using GIS and GPS

With a coastline stretching for more than 2,000 miles, Vietnam plays host to a wide variety of marine habitats. But overfishing and unsustainable eco-tourism practices have put Vietnam’s coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass ecosystems at risk, which in turn threaten the nation’s future fishing industry.

areas, starting with Nha Trang Bay, where underwater activity is monitored and steps are taken to preserve the naturally rich biodiversity of the continental shelf.

The Vietnamese government has recently taken measures to establish marine-protected

The group represented a mixed bag of countries and languages, but gathered with the common aim of

A recent international conference focused on assisting the government on how best to maintain a marine-protected area in Nha Trang Bay.

developing management plans, volunteer programs, and sustainable fishing and tourism practices. Among those attending were managers of other marineprotected areas and representatives from the National Oceanic Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), the Ministry of Fisheries in Vietnam, the World Wildlife Fund, Sea Web, and The World Conservation Union. Story continued on page 5

Learning about Social Change with GIS May 17, 2004 was the 50th anniversary of Brown v. The Board of Education, the landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that outlawed racial segregation in public schools. In the tumultuous years following that decision, black students attended integrated schools, often encountering difficulties inside and outside the classroom. A half-century later, some wondered how things

have changed. Are schools more or less segregated than they were 30 years ago? Than 10 years ago? Is educational equity a reality for most of the nation’s schools? High school students from Los Angeles asked those very question in 2004 during a summer workshop in which they took a retrospective look at Los Angeles’ education equity issues. “GIS was a tool to get at those issues,” said Noel Enyedy, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who helped develop the workshop. Students

conducted an oral history project and analyzed demographic datasets using My World. Enyedy and his colleagues theorized that the personal connection between the students and the neighborhoods would motivate them to apply mathematics and statistics. The 25 students were chosen from areas of LA that represented historical legal cases or had experienced important demographic shifts over the past 50 years. Story continued on page 6

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Bringing GIS to Teachers and Students in Appalachia Guiding students through active, hands-on projects in the classroom can be more intimidating for a teacher than lecturing to them. But some teachers in the Appalachian region of Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania are learning stress-free ways to make their classrooms more closely resemble real-world science. Cathlyn Stylinski, a University of Maryland professor, is spearheading a three-year project that aims

to promote the use of GIS software in rural schools. The project involves 120 hours of intensive workshops with local teachers, who plan to use the software in their classrooms. The teachers progress through the curricular material as if they were students. The Inquiring about Geographic Information Systems (I-GIS) Project involves collaborators from the University of Maryland’s Center for

Environmental Science/Appalachian Lab in Frostburg, Maryland, and Northwestern University ’s GEODE Initiative. The project is supported by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) Program.

Story continued on page 7

Chicago Public School Students Learn about GIS and GPS at Northwestern’s Lakefront Lagoon Olivia Straw, a teacher at Paul Robeson High School on the south side of Chicago, was searching for a good way to introduce GIS to the science club. She believed it was important for her science classes to be exposed to GIS because it reflects real-world science. “It ’s something urban planners use a lot and environmental scientists,” Straw said. “You can make some great decisions about environment choices with GIS data instead of reading

multiple books, reading about what kind of things might affect the environment.” One afternoon in late March, her science club boarded a bus for Northwestern University where GEODE staff and graduate students gave them an introduction to the use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Their goal was to collect observations of the regrowth of the native prairie plants that ring the artificial lagoon on

Northwestern’s lakefront campus. Just a week before their visit, Northwestern’s groundskeepers had conducted a controlled burn of the plants that had reduced them to a charred stubble.

Story continued on page 8

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THE GEODE NEWSLETTER

My World GIS: An Overview, continued

Story continued from page 1 In the fall of 2004, the My World project team invited 20 of the nation’s leading GIS-using educators to Northwestern to determine which were the most important GIS features for education. This workshop concluded with a useful GEODE Initiative report. Another important strategy is to develop interfaces that enable users to learn the software as they go. To implement this strategy, the My World team has conducted extensive user studies both in the lab at Northwestern and in real-world situations in public school classrooms. A third big challenge is making sure that the software works as a practical matter, within the constraints of educational settings. Even if the challenges of reducing complexity and improving usability are overcome, the challenge of compatibility can be a deal-breaker. In order to be compatible with school computing environments, GEODE Initiative researchers have had to take into account the need to run on five-year-old computers, to function on systems running restrictive security software, and to allow students to save their work quickly when the bell rings and to pick up where they left off the next day. Probably the most important element in this development process is the direct feedback from users. “We have learned a huge amount about both the opportunities and challenges for My W orld by listening to teachers. We are always soliciting feedback and trying to understand how to translate what we hear into improved software." The My World developers always try to keep their

focus on the end goal, which is creating an environment that allows students to learn science better. “We don’t want the tool to get in the way of the learning,” curriculum developer David Smith explained. “The software is designed to be very intuitive,” said Kemi Jona, a professor at Northwestern involved in developing curricula centered on My World. “If you want to analyze the data, you can construct English sentences – you don’t have to use computer code and programming.” Smith, who had been working with professional GIS tools in schools for several years before he came to Northwestern, had observed that when students get stuck with a technical difficulty, the learning stops. They become focused on troubleshooting the problem instead of focusing on the content of the activity. By designing the user interface to address the needs of teachers and students, researchers have reduced the likelihood of technical challenges, enabling students to focus on learning from data analysis. During the 2005-06 school year, GEODE researchers have collected data in classrooms using either My World or a professional GIS tool in an effort to evaluate the efficacy of the tools. This tracks, for example, how much time students spend talking about scientific issues rather than software issues. The results of these studies should be available in early 2007, but in the meantime PASCO Scientific reports a strong response to the latest release of My World from schools looking to adopt GIS for instruction.

For more information about My World GIS, visit http://myworldgis.org/myworld For more information about PASCO Scientific, visit http://www.pasco.com My World GIS and My World are trademarks of Northwestern University.

My World Goes to Vietnam, continued Story continued from page 2 With one marine-protected area already designated and 15 more in the works, staff education was a central part of the conference agenda. Laura Francis, a marine biologist who serves as the education coordinator for NOAA’s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, was one of the Americans selected to help train the managers of the new marine-protected areas. She had previously learned about My World at a workshop for teachers led by GEODE professional development specialist David Smith. Francis immediately recognized the potential of My World to serve the needs of these new marine reserve managers. So, Francis offered a seminar on My World and its possible uses in managing marine-protected areas at the conference. Her seminar attracted about 30 attendees. “ A lot of them hadn’t worked with GIS but definitely understood the value of special relationships in the marine-protected areas, in terms of looking at things like fishing areas with potential closures and reserve areas, coral areas and growth.”

about the marine-protected areas. It’s helpful to them because they can talk about the trends. It’s a good tool for them to be able to do that.” In the end, Francis felt that a short seminar just wasn’t enough. She’s currently planning an in-depth training session for next year that will last three or four days and concentrate solely on using My World as a tool to assess sustainable practices in marine-protected areas. She has invited David Smith from the GEODE Initiative to join her in conducting the workshop. “It ’s a long process that involves setting them up and educating the community about [marine-protected areas] -- about what you can and can’t do. It’s all about setting up eco-tourism in a sustainable way without damaging the resources.” According to Daniel Edelson, the Director of GEODE Initiative, “This is a very exciting and completely unanticipated use of My World. We are delighted that our software may be able to play a role in advancing sustainable development around the world.” Edelson also reports that this experience has GEODE developers thinking about an entirely new audience for My World: professionals who can benefit from GIS but don’t have the time to become a GIS specialist or the funds to hire one. As a result, My World is now available for purchase for non-educational use directly from Northwestern. For additional information on this program, please contact Laura Francis at [email protected].

The group already had a significant amount of data from a local monitoring program. “It was really a pilot for us to introduce the tool to managers and researchers—not spatial data analysts—who wanted to become more familiar with the program,” Francis said. My W orld represented a great opportunity, since it harnessed the power of a professional GIS tool but was more user-friendly for novices and occasional users. At the seminar, Francis walked the group through a demonstration of My World ’s functions. After installing the trial version on everyone’s computers, she took them through the steps of inputting the boundaries of the reserve and the coral cover. They used data to situate locations of fishing nets and fish populations. The following day, the group took a trip to the marine reserve and recorded GPS coordinates along the way. They also snapped digital photographs and were later able to hotlink images of the locations to a map. “ My World is such a visual tool, and it’s userfriendly,” Francis said. “Somebody can install it and not be intimidated and get started pretty quickly. The advantage for this type of group is [that] a lot of them are doing presentations

Participants of the international conference in Vietnam.

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THE GEODE NEWSLETTER

Social Change with GIS, continued Story continued from page 2 “ Y ou’re actually doing something that matters,” Enyedy said. “You ’re getting involved in community activism. You’re pursuing knowledge about the social inequities or education inequities that are facing your community.” The students used My World to visualize and analyze data from the L.A. Department of Education and the U.S. Census. They constructed arguments about educational equity by creating maps showing overcrowding in schools and the distribution of credentialed teachers in the state. The students overlaid data on credentialed teachers with a demographic map of the area. “It just sort of popped right out at you, this sort of correlation between the racial makeup of the neighborhood and the percentage of certified teachers,” Enyedy said. “The finding was that if you happened to be going to a school in a predominately African American or Latino area, you were less likely to have certified teachers.” The students made similar maps showing the overcrowding of schools. The maps showed which high schools had moved to a yearround, multi-track system—an indicator of overcrowding. Again, results showed that overcrowded schools were located in predominately African American and Latino neighborhoods. But some unexpected tensions arose when the students discussed their findings. While creating the map of credentialed teachers and demographics, some students noticed a few counterexamples—there were predominantly white neighborhoods that also had low numbers of credentialed teachers. “That is a really productive conversation to have,” Enyedy said, “as you struggle with counterexamples to this trend that we think we see. How can we tell if these counterexamples are just outliers or how can we tell if the pattern really holds?” It’s the type of conversation that leads to questions about central tendency and distribution. These were at the very core of the statistical concepts Enyedy was hoping the kids would learn. “The kids were using their local knowledge

to ignore the statistics, which should not be allowed to derail the productive conversation about the adequacy of the data,” Enyedy said. Rather than be discouraged by this, Enyedy saw it as an opportunity to learn from his experience, so he has written a paper about the workshop, which he hopes to have published in an educational research journal later this year. Enyedy has plans to investigate new instructional strategies to help students work out the tension between personal experience and statistics. He will be replicating the project with a longer-term activity involving middle school students. Surprisingly, he didn’t think the middle school students would have a more difficult time getting into the material or GIS software than their high school counterparts. “ U sually middle school kids are really concerned with fairness and equity,” Enyedy said. “And the transparency for My World was really amazing to get kids to do what you want to do, and focus on the learning, not the tool. With just two structured activities, we were able to get kids up and running on My W orld, and doing amazing things.”

For additional information on this program, please contact Noel Enyedy at [email protected].

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GIS in Appalachia, continued Story continued from page 3 I-GIS starts with a basic question: How does land cover affect stream health? “That is a question scientists know something about, but they don’t have any sure answers,” said Dr. Stylinski, who is an assistant professor of environmental science education. “It ’s not a topic that’s been fully answered, so there’s a lot of potential for exploration. It involves questions about where things are located, so [scientists] need to use GIS in their work.” Working to make science education more closely resemble the practice of authentic science, the teachers first build a knowledge base about the relationship between variables of a watershed ecosystem. From precipitation to stream flow, water carries sediment and particles that may have been affected by land use. They begin with a premise of what constitutes stream health, and then work backwards to discover what events could adversely affect it. “ GIS and spatial analysis play a key role in that,” Stylinski explained. “The teachers work with different layers, like elevation, to understand which way streams flow and to figure out where watersheds are. So they work with My World interactively to figure out how elevation changes.” The group then applies what it has learned about the

relationship between land cover and stream health, and then expands it to apply to the watershed as a whole. The teachers issue a management report after looking for areas where stream health seems to be at risk. Conversely, they select places of good stream health and explain how that happened, too. Ultimately, the group has identified real areas where the land cover could be positively or negatively affecting stream health. They also list areas where they need to collect more information. “The teachers work with real world scientific databases – the ones that scientists do,” Stylinski said. “In fact, what they do is really similar to what scientists do.” The GEODE staff, led by David Smith and Meridith Bruozas, played an integral part in this project, helping to design and write learning activities that the teachers do themselves in the I-GIS summer institutes and then take back to their classrooms to use with their students during the school year. Stylinski sought out the participation of the GEODE Initiative because of their expertise in the design of project-based science curricula. Daniel Edelson, GEODE Initiative Director, described their role in the project as being consultants in the design of inquirybased learning activities that both engage students

and develop deep understanding. “ W hen we work with scientific organizations on projects like these,” Edelson says, “our goal is to help build capacity for educational development and delivery within their organizations. We roll up our sleeves and develop curriculum and professional development together, but the underlying goal is to teach them what we do and learn about what they do. “

“The teachers work with real world scientific databases – the ones that scientists do,” Stylinski said. “In fact, what they do is really

“Bridging the cultures of science and education can be a real challenge, but we feel that the IGIS Project has been very successful, both in the quality of the units we’ve produced together and what we’ve learned from each other.”

similar to what scientists do.” --Cat Stylinski, Principal Investigator of IGIS

Because the project has been underway at the same time GEODE researchers have been developing My World, Stylinski and her team have had the opportunity to influence the development of My World. Stylinski has made numerous suggestions to improve My World’s functionality and usability. Nonetheless she has observed firsthand the benefits of My World in comparison to other GIS tools she has used in other projects. “The teachers are much better prepared to lead these GISbased investigations in their classrooms,” she said. Because of these benefits, she is optimistic about the ultimate impact that the GIS-infused unit that they have developed will have on students. “Our hope is that it excites the students, helping them understand the data through experience, and that they might eventually consider GIS careers.” For more information on this program, please visit alese.al.umces.edu/igis/Home.html.

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THE GEODE NEWSLETTER

GIS at Northwestern lagoon, continued Story continued from page 3

“You can make some great decisions about environment choices with GIS data” --Olivia Straw, Chicago Public School teacher

With just a few clicks on their handheld GPS units, the students were able to obtain their precise latitude and longitude. They split up into groups and then selected several locations where they recorded their coordinates, took digital photographs, and wrote down additional observations. Straw concocted the plan together with Heather Johnson, a graduate student in Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy, and David Smith, a curriculum development specialist with the GEODE Initiative. The students were using GPS devices and cameras purchased through a grant from the Northwestern University Alumnae Association. “They were impressed with the satellites,” Johnson said. “We introduced them to the different screens [on the GPS units] at the school. The first one shows that there are 11 different satellites that are hanging above your head at all times. And they were impressed with that.”

While out in the field, the students had a satellite picture of the lagoon area so that they could compare the picture to where they were by using the coordinates from their GPS devices. After a short time in the field, the students returned indoors to load their coordinates into a GIS and view maps of the location. Straw and Johnson showed photographs taken about a week earlier on the day of the controlled burn. “The controlled burning was a fun way to get them to see—with GIS—how a particular location might have changed over time,” Straw said. GEODE researchers have plans to repeat this activity over the course of several years with students from different area schools. “Our plan is to use our own backyard to demonstrate what you can learn by tracking changes in an ecosystem over time,” says Daniel Edelson, GEODE Initiative director. “These new technologies are enabling us to make precise observations that can be shared with others effortlessly via the web or email.”

Release of My World GIS version 4.0

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In April 2006, the GEODE Initiative and PASCO Scientific announced the release of My World GIS 4.0. My World gives learners the power to investigate global and local geographic data while exploring real-world phenomena in science, geography, history, and more. My World provides most of the powerful features of a professional GIS environment, and many new features and interfaces designed specifically with students, teachers, and classrooms in mind. Basic features include: Layers of Data. Users can represent each type of data on a map. You can decide how variables are displayed to create powerful data representations. Selections. You can select data visually or analytically, using map tools, queries, and spatial analysis tools. Each selection becomes a new, permanent subset of each layer. Data Libraries. Adding data to a map is an easy, one-step process. My World comes with a large body of physical and social data in areas such as Climate, Geology, Geography, Biology, Economics, and Demography. In addition, My W orld provides dynamic layers that draw from online data repositories, such as satellite and aerial image servers. Data Importing. You can also import your own data. My World reads data in the GIS industry-standard shapefile format, as well as tab and comma-delimited text files. My World's online data center provides ever-expanding repositories of additional data. Links connect My World maps with photos, web pages, and movies. Data analysis features include: Data tables underlie each layer, allowing you to sort, select, and add columns. Analysis Mode provides sentence-guided scaffolding for queries and spatial analysis. Alternate Representations. In addition to GIS maps, you can display data as tables, histograms, scatter plots, and vertical profiles of grids. Classroom-support features include: Portable Project Files. You can share maps with others in a single, self-contained, compressed file that includes all data and appearance information. Other users simply drag the project file into their My World window. Saved projects can be set to automatically open with a customizable text window for providing introductions, descriptions, and assignments. Support for New Users. My World provides an introductory screen that contains quick links to help users get started, get help, and link to online My World resources—including the new Activity Center, Data Center, and Help Center. For beginners, My World now provides an introductory video tour, sample projects with tips to get started, and a series of "How-to" tutorials. Unique features for viewing data: Child Windows. You can place two or more maps side-by-side for comparison by creating separate "Child Windows." Child Windows can be synchronized with the Main Window so that any time you zoom, pan, or click on a point in one window, the same thing happens in the other windows. Or, you can use an unsynchronized Child Window to show a large area while you zoom in on a portion of it in the Main Window. Child Windows also make it possible to view and sample several different gridded (raster) datasets at the same time. Named Views allow you to save a particular "view" within a mapview and return to it immediately at any time in the future. For example, choose some variables to view one region of the world, and save it as a named view. Then go to another region and do the same thing. Immediately switch from the first view to the second using a pull-down menu at the bottom of the layer list. This can also be used to easily jump between different dates in time-based data. For more information on My World GIS, visit http://myworldgis.or/myworld

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THE GEODE NEWSLETTER

GEODE BRIEFS

BRIEFS GEODE publishes high school environmental science curriculum Supporting high school science reform in Chicago Article by GEODE researchers in NSTA Science Teacher GEODE Initiative coauthors online high school Earth science course. My World GIS on Maine laptops

Visit www.geode.northwestern.edu /LATE for more information about Investigations in Environmental Science

GEODE publishes high school environmental science curriculum. In the Fall of 2005, the first unit of Investigations in Environmental Science: A Case-Based Approach to the Study of Environmental Systems was published by It’s About Time Publishers. This environmental science course was developed by GEODE Initiative researchers through a research-driven development process that started in 1998 with a grant from NSF’s program in Instructional Materials Development. Investigations is organized around cases of real-world environmental issues involving land, energy, and water resources. In the course of working through these cases, students use GIS to investigate scientific data and learn a systematic process for making decisions with environmental implications. The third and final unit of this yearlong course will be published in July 2006. In addition to the grant from NSF, this project received a substantial grant from the Toyota USA Foundation to support the development of teacher materials and teacher professional development.

Supporting high school science reform in Chicago. GEODE Initiative is the lead organization in a new partnership called the Meaningful Science

Consortium, which has been assembled to support high school science reform in Chicago. The GEODE Initiative is teaming up with BSCS, the University of Illinois at Chicago, It’s About Time Publishers, and several other partners to provide high schools in Chicago with a three-year science course sequence, an assessment system, professional development, and coaching. The course sequence consists of a combined Environmental and Environmental science course at ninth grade using the GEODE Initiative’s Investigations in Environmental Science. This project is part of a larger effort to transform high schools in Chicago that is funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Article by GEODE researchers in NSTA Science Teacher. An article by GEODE researchers about the decision-making approach that students use in Investigations in Environmental Science appeared in the April/May 2006 issue of Science Teacher. Science Teacher is the National Science Teachers Association’s journal for high school teachers. The article describes the Stakeholder Consequences Decision-

Making (SCDM) Process that helps students to apply their scientific understanding to identify the potential outcomes of decisions on affected stakeholders and to take explicit account of values in weighing tradeoffs between outcomes. The article is available for download from the NSTA website at: http://www.nsta.org/main/n ews/stories/science_teacher. php?news_story_ID=51839

GEODE Initiative coauthors online high school Earth science course. Researchers in the GEODE Initiative have collaborated with the Illinois Virtual High School to develop a yearlong high school Earth science course that incorporates the use of My W orld GIS to support inquiry activities with data.

My World GIS on Maine laptops. For several years, Maine has led the nation in the use of laptops in schools with a program that provides a free laptop to every 7 th and 8 th grade student in the state, and many 9-12 th grade students as well. Beginning with the 20067 school year, these laptops will come with My W orld GIS 4.0 installed.

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GEODE BRIEFS, continued

BRIEFS GEODE Initiative developer receives MA in Learning Sciences GEODE Initiative to receive GLOBE grant Middle school curriculum development GEODE participates in implementation research

GEODE Initiative developer receives MA in Learning Sciences. Meredith Bruozas, lead developer for Investigations in Environmental Science, has received her Master's in Learning Sciences from Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy. She accomplished this while balancing the demands of her “ day job” (developing curriculum and supporting teachers) with a rigorous academic program (the study of learning and the design of learning environments). Meredith is the third developer to complete the MA program in Learning Sciences while working in the GEODE Initiative. She was preceded by Kathleen Schwille and Adam Tarnoff.

GEODE Initiative receives GLOBE grant. GEODE Initiative researchers have recently been awarded a “next generation GLOBE” grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF). GEODE researchers will be collaborating with the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrological Sciences (CUAHSI), to develop investigations in hydrology for students. In this project, students will be using GIS tools including My World to conduct investigations of their local watershed using the enormous CUAHSI databases on hydrology research. The grant provides

funding for 180 teachers from across the country to participate in professional development offered by GEODE researchers. Moreover, the activities that GEODE will develop will be disseminated to the worldwide community of GLOBE schools over the web.

GEODE participates in middle school curriculum development. GEODE researchers are participating in two middle school curriculum development projects. One, part of the ProjectBased Inquiry Science (PBIS) curriculum, is a three-year curriculum in development by Northwestern, the University of Michigan, and Georgia Tech, to be published by It’s About Time in 2007. Two GEODE-developed units focus on climate and plate tectonics and use My World to analyze Earth science data. GEODE researchers are also developing Earth science units for the Investigating and Questioning our World Through Science and Technology (IQWST) curriculum with a consortium of five universities. IQWST will begin field testing in Fall 2006 and is scheduled for publication in 2011. PBIS and IQWST are funded by the NSF.

GEODE participates in implementation research. GEODE researchers are participating in two NSFfunded research projects that use Investigations in Environmental Science as the context for research and implementation of science education reform. In one project, led by Dr. Barry Fishman of the University of Michigan, researchers are studying the tradeoffs between face-to-face and online professional development. In this study, teachers using Investigations for the first time will be assigned to one of three professional development experiences— either face-to-face or online. Researchers will collect data for two years to see what differences in teaching and learning emerge. In a second project, led by Dr. Louis Gomez of Northwestern and Dr. Kim Gomez of the University of Illinois at Chicago, researchers are studying the use of “reading to learn” strategies to help students become better readers of science texts. Researchers are providing Investigations teachers with professional development on reading to learn strategies and guidance on employment with Investigations.

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The GEODE Initiative Contact the GEODE Initiative: GEODE Initiative Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy 2120 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208 E-mail: [email protected]. edu Web Site: www.geode.northwestern.edu

The Geographic Data in Education (GEODE) Initiative is dedicated to the improvement of Earth and environmental science education through the use of data visualization and analysis tools to support inquiry-based pedagogy. Through an integrated program of research and development, the GEODE Initiative is advancing our understanding of learning in the Earth and environmental sciences, design of curriculum and educational software, and teacher professional development. Equally important, the GEODE Initiative is creating useful materials for students and teachers at levels ranging from middle school through college. Director Daniel C. Edelson Faculty Kemi Jona Steven McGee Research and Development Professionals Meridith Bruozas; Lou-Ellen Finn; Beth Heneghan; Matthew Rossi; Eric Russell; David Smith; Jean Sutow; Nicholas Wylie Graduate Research Assistants Heather Johnson; Kirsten Mawyer; Anna Switzer External Consultants Matthew Brown, Inquirium; Brad Heilman, Kidsolve ; Elory Rozner, Elory Rozner Consulting; Carolyn Staudt The work of the GEODE Initiative has been supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants number 0455582, 0352478, 0333529, 0422545, 0137807, 0439493, 0227557, 9720697, 0085946, 9720383. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. The GEODE Initiative has also received support from the Toyota USA Foundation, DuPont, Sun Microsystems, ESRI, the BP Foundation, the Chicago Public Schools, and the Alumnae Board of Northwestern University.

School of Education and Social Policy School of Education and Social Policy Penelope Peterson, Dean www.sesp.northwestern.edu

The GEODE Initiative is a research and development group within Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy. The mission of the School of Education and Social Policy is to understand and improve learning communities—schools and classrooms, workplace settings, families and neighborhoods; to study lifelong learning; and to improve lives through policy. Faculty in the School of Education and Social Policy conduct research that investigates how people learn and develop over the course of their lives. Research themes focus on individual development, families and communities, pedagogical and technological innovations, teacher development, and school improvement. The results of such research become powerful tools to shape education and social programs that make a difference in schools and communities and change the lives of children and families.