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Online Module Activities

Beginning in December 2006, project investigators began coordinating and developing a website for IDGE to facilitate the creation of on-line learning modules in geoscience education centered on GLOBE student data. These modules will be provided to other educators, such as MU Upward Bound, to provide course implementation assistance for other Environmental Inquiry (Geoscience) summer course.

Chris Lambert, the program specialist with the Learning Technology Center at Fairmont State University, was identified to do the website development work. Prior to joining FSU, he spent 12 years in the private sector where he developed educational websites. On December 12, a web conference meeting was conducted between project staff and content specialists to begin the process of developing the content necessary for the web modules.

During a content specialist meeting in December 2006, a unifying theme was discussed that could tie all learning modules together. Two important cognitive dimensions outlined as a necessity for geoscientists include the following:

  1. tackle relevant issues on several orders of time magnitudes, and
  2. utilize multi-dimensional visual representations of geoscience data.

These two cognitive skills will be the central themes for the on-line learning modules.

Project investigators feel that the originally proposed number of 10 modules was ambitious. Our new plan will be to develop 5 learning modules that each address a different investigation area within GLOBE.

They will target utilization of GLOBE-related data to reveal issues on multiple orders of both space and time scales and also represent data from the 5 GLOBE investigation areas.

Below is the submitted outline for a module from Dr. Rico Gazal of Glenville State College:

Leaf Phenology and Climate Change

  1. Heat Island Effect
    1. What is Heat Island Effect?
    2. What are the factors that contribute to the heat island phenomena in urban areas? (Examples of highly urbanized versus rural areas)
      1. Temperature and Precipitation (http://www.weather.gov/climate/)
      2. Air Pollution (http://www.epa.gov/air/data/geosel.html)
      3. Population and urban development (http://www.census.gov/population/www/)
    3. Elevation as a function of temperature (Comparing West Virginia Sites) (http://www.city-data.com/)
  1. Examination of satellite images using AEJEE
    1. Examine infrared satellite image of WV (http://wvgis.wvu.edu/) and compare different cities/towns
    2. Examine other satellite images from other countries (http://glcfapp.umiacs.umd.edu:8080/esdi/index.jsp)
  1. Phenology
    1. What is phenology and its examples? (http://www.naturescalendar.org.uk/)
    2. What is leaf phenology?
    3. How is phenology related to climate change?
    4. Spring Months vs. Temperature, Rainfall, etc. (e.g. Charleston, WV from 2002-2006, average max temp from 1971-2000) (http://www.weather.gov/climate/)
  1. Budburst timing, temperature and soil moisture
    1. GLOBE data online (http://www.globe.gov/globe_flash.html)
      1. Budburst
      2. Temperature
      3. Soil Moisture
    2. Data sort in Excel
    3. Graph of budburst date and year
    4. Relationship of budburst date, temperature and soil moisture
  1. The need for long-term phenology data in WV