Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Pathway

Posted Sun, 10/18/2009 - 11:26am by Anonymous
Grant Number: 
DUE-0938051
Target Audiences: 
middle-school through undergraduate levels (grades 6-16) as well as to citizens through formal and informal education venues and communities
Partners: 
TERC, CIRES at the University of Colorado, NOAA/UCAR, National Renewal Energy Laboratory, SERC at Carleton College

 

The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Pathway will steward a broad collection of educational resources that facilitate students, teachers, and citizens becoming climate literate and informed about “the climate’s influence on you and society and your influence on climate.”  The focus of our efforts will be to integrate the effective use of the resources across all educational levels – with a particular focus on the middle-school through undergraduate levels (grades 6-16) as well as to citizens through formal and informal education venues and communities.   The activities of the CLEAN Pathway project will have three major components.

CLEAN Collection-  Through the identification and stewardship of existing high-quality digital resources, a collection of educational resources will be built that address climate literacy and energy awareness culled from the wide range of collections of such resources that are available. These resources will be selected as they support Climate Literacy.  They will be aligned with a) the AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks for Science Literacy; b) the National Science Education Standards; c) the NAAEE Excellence in Environmental Education Guidelines for Learning; and d) the latest science as published in the IPCC, CCSP and other climate assessment reports.

CLEAN Strand Map- The CLEAN collection will utilize the leading NSDL browse tool, the NSDL science literacy maps.  Building on existing work to help teachers connect concepts, standards, and NSDL educational resources by providing a way to discover how scientific concepts relate to one another, the CLEAN Pathway work will significantly improve educators’ access to both educationally and scientifically sound resources relating to climate and energy topics. NSDL Science Literacy Maps serve teachers and students in finding resources that relate to specific science, technology and math concepts. The maps illustrate connections between concepts and depict how concepts build upon one another across grade levels.

CLEAN Community- The project will facilitate of the effective use of the resources with the teachers, students, and citizens.  This will involve a range of activities including: A)Teleconference-online workshops that help teachers and citizens learn to use various resources in the collection and help teachers integrate them into their classrooms.  B) The facilitation of an online community using Web 2.0 social networking tools to promote collaboration, interactivity, and knowledge sharing among its users. C) Facilitate and expand the existing Climate Literacy Network to include existing and emerging climate and energy education experts and enthusiasts.

The CLEAN Pathway project officially begins in January 2010.