Geoscience Education and Outreach in the Americas: Opportunities for North-South Collaboration
Presiding: I Pereira, LBA-ECO Project, Science Systems and Applications, Inc.; R M Johnson, UCAR Office of Education and Outreach
ED23A-01 INVITED 13:30h
Anthropology and Geosciences: Training and Collaboration Advancing Interdisciplinary Research of Human-environment Interaction
Over the past thirteen years the Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT) at Indiana University has pioneered the use of anthropological and environmental research approaches to address issues of land use change, and population-environment interaction, particularly in the Amazon. Our research and training objectives focus on how particular local populations manage resources and how those activities may be studied by integrating time-tested ethnographic methods, survey instruments, ecological field studies, and the spatial and temporal perspectives of remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems. The globalization of the environment crisis bears the risk of the research and training at universities being purely global or large scale in nature. This would fail to take into account the highly variable local causes of human activities or to discover sustainable solutions to the use, conservation, and restoration of human ecosystems. Our approach combines institutional and international collaboration, formal and hands-on laboratory and field activities developed within an interdisciplinary environment, but based on the strength of disciplinary programs. Over the past years, we have particularly emphasized collaboration between American and Brazilian scholars and students and intense work with local farmers and communities both during data collection and field research, as well as in returning data and results using different formats. In this paper, we address our experience, the challenges and advantages of theoretical and methodological development for students approaching interdisciplinary problems, innovations in linking levels of analysis, and new opportunities for international and collaborative training and research on human-environment interaction.
ED23A-02 INVITED 13:50h
Building Bridges Between Scientific Categories and Common Sense Social Representations
The teaching of scientific categories in remote regions of the country, far away from research centers involved in the production of knowledge must take into account the layman's common sense concepts of those categories. Our research on the comprehension and learning of linguistic categories in on-service education courses gives support to the utility of the notion of social representations (such as described by Moscovici, Abric and others ) and has shown that re-textualization of scientific definitions undertaken by students in on-service training programs is reinforced by everyday, non-scientific categories. It has also shown that re-textualization is an activity that involves the social representation of the discourse objects. It has been said that all scientific concepts have a a corresponding common sense one; our paper addresses the problem of how to investigate the community's local knowledge so as to build the foundations of outreach programs.
ED23A-03 14:10h
The Windows to the Universe Project: A Facility for Inter-American Geoscience Education and Outreach
Windows to the Universe (http://www.windows.ucar.edu) is a popular and comprehensive Earth and space science education web site that uses an interdisciplinary approach to engage our global audience. The entire Windows to the Universe site (roughly 7,000 pages) is being translated into Spanish, with support from the National Science Foundation. Large portions have already been "published" to the web and have been in use since October 2003. Web site statistics indicate that use of the Spanish portion of the site has quickly ramped up to ~20% of total site traffic. Approximately 150,000 users per month have accessed the Spanish-language segments of the site over the past academic year, in addition to the visitors to the English version of the website. The largest fraction of non-US users of the Spanish website come from Mexico, with growing use from countries from Central and South America and Spain. A total of 6.7 million users from around the world accessed the educational resources on this comprehensive website in 2004. An exciting new web-based development interface utilizing templates and an image database allows scientists from around the world to collaborate with the Windows to the Universe team, becoming remote developers on the website. This approach has proven to work effectively for scientists eager to efficiently get their science research results out to the public, taking advantage of their specialized expertise and yet not requiring them to become specialists in informal or formal K-12 education.
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/spanish
ED23A-04 14:25h
The Elusive Multiplying Factor for Sustainable Development: The Case for Integrating Scientific Research and Basic Education in the MAP Region, SW Amazonia.
The Region of Madre de Dios-Peru, the State of Acre-Brazil, and the Department of Pando-Bolivia, known collectively as the trinational MAP Region, lies at the heart of Southwestern Amazonia. This region covers over 300,000 km2 with a population of 700,000 that ranges from urban dwellers to indigenous groups trying to avoid contact with industrial society. This region, home of incredible biological and cultural wealth, represents some of the economically poorest areas of the respective countries. It is also a site of accelerating global change in land-use, with three highways being developed for all-weather transport between central Brazil and Pacific ports. Our group has engaged in pilot experiments to provide regional societies with access to recent scientific results. Our objective is to help these societies in their quest to develop through: a) the use of GPS and satellite imagery for land use planning by small rural producers; b) municipal-level meetings in two countries to evaluate current problems and future land use along the inter-oceanic highway; c) the analysis of deforestation in the trinational river basin; d) dissemination via the media of imagery and analysis of fires during the burning season; and e) incorporation of nearby forests into the rural educational system. While most of these experiments have proven successful, they pale before the challenge of expanding them to become significant in changing land use and promoting sustainable development in this region. The multiplying factors need to be in the range of ten to a thousand times the size of the pilot experiments. Public policy and economic initiatives are crucial, but are often treated as the only means for such multiplication. The basic education system represents another, complementary multiplying factor. In the State of Acre, about a third of the population, 200,000, are in the K-12 school system and of these over 80% are in the 1- to 8-year series. Currently, we are helping local school systems along the frontier develop new curricula that incorporates satellite imagery and landscape ecology, as well as discussions about two basic human rights linked to education and research: the right to information about sustainable development and the right to participate in collective decisions. Curriculum reform that includes insertion of research results and techniques into the basic education system has the potential of reaching tens of thousands of persons per decade in the MAP Region. As such, the collaboration of scientists and educators may provide a means to encounter the elusive multiplying factors necessary to promote a more sustainable future for the region.
ED23A-05 14:40h
Why There is no Oceanography Teaching in Argentina: A Possible N-S Collaboration
Except for a few intents made since 60's, there has not been a serious, continuous effort to develop an integrated program to teach Oceanography in Argentina at the graduate level. A major consequence is the lack of trainned oceanographers to cover the minimum needs for research and technical assessing. At the present time, there is only one program about 7 years old to cover Licenciate and PhD courses in Physical Oceanography, but there is no program to cover the other orientations. Nevertheless, there is a project within the Universidad Nacional del Sur to open a PhD program covering all disciplines within the next year. Although most courses can be taught by local faculty, the idea is to develop an integrated program with other universities both in South and North America to cover a wider range of subjects and chances for orientations that are presently lacking within the country. Professors and graduate students could be exchanged incluidng the possibility that North American graduate students could work on their thesis and dissertations in Argentinian issues. Even though this program is thought for the case of Argentina, it could be readily expanded to various countries having similar problems.