NSDL's Earth Exploration Toolbook leverages collaboration for impacts in student learning....

Here's a great example oft how NSDL projects and the partnerships they foster can create terrific results. The Earth Exploration Toolbook project was originally funded through NSDL in 2002 (Tamara Ledley, PI) and resulted in a very well done resource featuring seven 'chapters' of computer-based Earth science activities using online data sets and analysis tools that enable users to explore aspects of the Earth system.

With additional funding from the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) Data Services project, and the AccessData project, a series of annual workshops were held over the past six years.  Each workshop facilitated about 10 teams, each with 5-6 members who worked together to develop a new EET chapter. Each team had the expertise of a data provider, analysis tool specialist, scientist, curriculum developer and educator represented. Through those workshops and other partnerships, the Earth Exploration Toolbook now contains 27 chapters, with approximately 15 more in development, all covering a wide range of Earth science topics and data analysis skills. That in itself is a gratifying accomplishment - but to put the human face on the story:

- As a result of the 2009 AccessData workshop a team focused on using the Education Global Climate Model (EdGCM) developed a new EET chapter that went live in January 2010.  This EET chapter was found by a high school student who based her science project on the EET chapter. That student has now been selected to present the project at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

- Through the use of EET in the DataTools program—a professional development program for teachers on the use of technology (funded by the ITEST program), a group of workshop teachers from one school in Massachusetts have some unscientific, yet impressive evidence for how use of EET had an impact on their students' performance on standardized tests. Teachers compared the MCAS scores (Massachusetts standardized test) of the 8th grade students in their middle school, to those scores of other middle schools in their district, all of whom use the same curriculum and textbooks. The school in question—the only one to use the EET and the strategies that the teachers learned in the DataTools program—usually records that they are within 25 points of the other schools on the MCAS. This past year, they were 100 points above the other middle schools in scoring.

Nice going, EET!