Check out the Pilot Project Presentation!.Virtual Communities for Environmental Education
This is an appeal to all who truly see the value in the internet (specifically the web) as a tool and medium for literacy learning and expression, and in bridging communications between communities, cultures, and individual experiences.
The project described here outlines a strategy for developing "virtual communities" for education and environmental stewardship skills development. This project embraces technology as a tool for learning and relies on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), community mapping activities and the internet for sharing findings and expressing views (web pages).
Check out the Pilot Project Presentation!.
CONTENTS:
Our
Partners, Information Providers and Mentors
Sharing
Experiences: Environments
Sharing
Experiences: Ecosystems & Human Impacts
Sharing
Experiences: Comparing Biodiversity
Sharing
Experiences: Lifestyles & Culture
Check
out Our Proposed "First Steps"
How To Make it Happen: A Pilot Project With Academic
Tracking and Evaluation.
Check out the Pilot Project Presentation!.
I hope to make this the focus of my dissertation in education at the University of Idaho: College of Education. An outline and a description of how this idea blends with outcome-based or performance-assessment education models and constructivist learning styles is linked on my CoMap Project pages. I am now soliciting help and comment from the online, education, and environmental community. I recently developed a proposal and secured funding for a collaborative effort in piloting some of my strategies with the Hemingway Learning Institute (). Here is an outline of my strategy for initiating a virtual community-based geographic information sharing and environmental education program.
The project includes aspects of the following learning tools, techniques and strategies:
Our
Partners, Information Providers and Mentors:
Educational and technical (internet web pages) resources and mentor institutions will include:
What I describe here is an opportunity to use leading-edge education strategies in developing a "virtual community" among young researchers for sharing information about the real world. Using maps, reports, and graphics including modeled, rendered, and imaged aspects of real communities, participating students and teachers can share their successes and challenges in implementing wider community participation in understanding the local environment, and how it relates to larger regional and global ecosystems (in this case ecosystem includes social, biologic, and physical interaction).
Sharing
Experiences: Environments.
By participating in a coordinated virtual community through the world-wide-web, we can visually and with narratives, represent our physical environments, the setting of our everyday lives, and the projects each of us are involved in that promote a better understanding of environmental and social issues. Through this project I hope to provide a model of very appropriate use of technology and communications for sharing learning experiences. And while the activites may focus on the environment, the subject matter is not limited to that alone. It is just that I believe the "environment", both physical and social, is the best common-ground starting point. I also recognize that we all have an inherent curiosity about what it is like to live in other places. So, sharing information about our widely varying environments and what we do there, should be universally appealing. Further, the need to gain and share a better understanding of the environment and natural resources is a commonly recognized and justifiable goal of education. Please visit our proposal site to see how you and your organization can help.
Sharing Experiences:Ecosystems & Human Impacts.
This project therefore represents a truly innovative and appropriate use of technology in education. Through the medium of internet publishing students will be able to share who they are and where they live, as well as initiate collaborative research projects, sharing and comparing maps and narratives describing local ecosystems. Studies can document the unique flora and fauna found in different regions, their distribution, habitats, movement and more. Students and teachers can also compare the roles played by particular species, including humans. Who or what are the dominant species? What roles do they play and what niches do they fill? Are there similarities in the roles played by different species in different settings. What human strategies are being employed to either exploit or support biodiversity, conservation, preservation? What are the conditions of "natural" areas in our communities? How are we treating our precious water resources, stream and riparian systems? How healthy are they? What can we do to assist recovery (if necessary)? What are the parks like? Recreation areas? How can we work together to make them better?
Sharing
Experiences: Comparing Biodiversity.
Exploring
and comparing communities through the study of geography and publishing on the internet:
My example: I live in Ketchum Idaho, located in a rural high desert valley in the
northern Rocky Mountains. You may be curious about what life is like here. What does
it look like in the local Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho in winter? In spring, summer
and fall? What are the coolest things about living here? The wildlife is spectacular:
elk, deer, moose, bear, beaver, wolf, wildcat, wolverine, salmon and trout, birds
of all kinds (incidentally, can we compare and share information on birds that migrate
among us?). What projects are underway here that give young people opportunities
to investigate and report on the environment and human impact? What restoration projects
have students been involved with? How have they enlisted the community, local agencies,
etc?
Sharing
Experiences: Lifestyles & Culture.
Or, what fun? We also want to share our unique recreation opportunities. Community activities pages could share information on skiing, boarding, biking, hiking, fishing, rafting, rodeo, hunting and wilderness exploring.
What about the local culture? We could describe our rich natural and cultural heritage, including:
Sharing & Comparing Across the Nation and Globe.
Through the use of GIS techniques, mapping activities, images, sketches and narratives, we can explore how our home town terrain and ecolog differ from that in Boulder Colorado, or for that matter, in Tampa Florida, Portland Maine, Santa Barbara California, or Houston Texas. We can explore similarities and differences between these places and our neighbor countries, eg. Dangriga Belize, or Katmandu Nepal, or Paris France. What are the issues, human habits, habitats, species, human impacts in each of our communities/countries? What about other people and places all over the world? What can we learn from conversing with and sharing narratives, images, and perhaps quicktime vignettes with people in Moscow (a city in Idaho and in Russia)? Can students and teachers learn more by connecting with real people in a cooperative international program of geographic-based information sharing? I certainly think so. As this project progresses, we may find friends and collaborators all over the world. We may meet real people and "virtually visit" interesting places, and then plan to visit in-person. When we get there, we can hook up with people we now know to share education strategies. There is tremendous potential for cultivating friendships globally in this way. Also, we can explore ideas for establishing sister schools, communities and countries for the purpose of sharing and celebrating our uniqueness. Work is already underway with sister schools in Belize.
All of the above questions lead me to believe that the online sharing of real information, about real people and places through the medium of the world-wide-web is not only possible, but indeed represents an extraordinary opportunity for sharing and learning in a global community. And as commercial endeavors move to dominate the medium, how can we ensure that it retains the heart and soul of its capabilities for true global connectivity for the common sharing of information about real issues?
All of this may not appear entirely novel. I admit to being influenced by the many "what-ifs" put forth in marketing and advertising about the information superhighway, and what it could mean for social interaction and learning. I also admit to the influence of many wonderful programs in place that deal with empowering youth, and those that promote environmental stewardship. I am committed to seeing this vision through and am currently developing strategies for making it work (see our collaboration in GLOBE-Idaho). I will be conducting an academic review of this project's implementation, facilitation, and evaluation as part of a Ph.D. in education at the University of Idaho. Further information (an outline of my dissertation ideas), and a description of how this idea blends with outcome-based or performance-assessment education models is linked on my CoMap Project pages.
With the modest startup project in Idaho outlined here and in the GLOBE-Idaho project, I hope to prove these ideas and expand and replicate the strategies through education training and workshops eventually offered across the state, nation, and internationally.
To start the project, I have a small number of dedicated and enthusiastic teachers and educators in a variety of K-12 settings that will be participating. Schools range from standard K-12 settings: separate but collaborating elementary, middle and high schools, to an integrated K-12 in a private educational setting, as well as after-school enrichment and childcare centers, and finally an entire "alternative" home schooling district.
Commitment from the computing and telecommunications industry is vital. Both for obvious reasons of assisting with equipment and access technologies, but also because traditional sources of funding and support are (and have been) diminishing significantly. With the explosion of technology and global connectivity, there is a serious need to provide opportunity for educators and the next generation to experience the innumerable benefits promised. Support for, and direct participation in projects of this kind will not only give young people experience in the tools of global commerce, but with familiarity, they will certainly demand further access to it upon entering the working world. What is good for today's youth, is good for tomorrow's culture. It only makes great business sense as well.
Check
out Our Proposed "First Steps":
Please visit our proposal pages to see how you and your organization can contribute time, energy, expertise, advise, equipment and or money to support this exciting project.
The HLI-CoMap GLOBE Proposal focusses on making the project happen in a flexible after school setting where we will have the opportunity and time to test and refine strategies and curriculum. In addition to directing and co-teaching the program at HLI, I will be "gopher" for the rest of the district and participating schools in GLOBE-Idaho. I will work with state and local agencies to get their participation, gather resources (maps, images, reports), and teach internet publishing. Additionally, with my extensive background in earth and environmental science and technology (see my resume), I believe I can really help in the science and technology issues as they are presented to students. Finally, as I now enter a Ph.D. program in Education at the University of Idaho, I will seek additional funding and support for expanding and continuing this pilot and its adoption elsewhere.
Thanks for your time.
For more information please contact me at sgraves@ecoguild.com
Scott M. Graves
ecoguild, inc.
Or to continue the thread, here is another perspective on the need for new forms of education that include understanding the environment and using technology to share information.
