Location:
California

Description:
Project ALERT (Augmented Learning Environment and Renewable Teaching) is a cooperative California-based program with two main partners, the California State University (CSU) geoscience and education disciplines and the NASA centers at Ames Research Center (ARC) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Project ALERT is a three-year initiative that formally began in spring 1998 with funding from NASA and nine CSU campuses; two additional campuses have been recruited since the inception of the project. The shared goals are to build strong bridges between NASA scientists, engineers, and science information technologists at ARC and JPL, and university educators and scientists at the CSU. CSU is one of the largest education systems in the world composed of twenty-three campuses; the system prepares a large percentage of teachers in the state. A primary emphasis of ALERT is to create and/or infuse interdisciplinary Earth science course materials into the core science curriculum of pre-service teachers.

The types of projects undertaken by CSU and NASA professionals include repackaging Earth sensing information generated by NASA missions for educational uses, effecting simpler transfers of NASA technology to education, and reassessing and augmenting university-level Earth science course content. ALERT also ties strongly to other NASA-sponsored educational outreach efforts within the Universities Space Research Association-Earth System Science Education (USRA-ESSE) and NASA Opportunities for Visionary Academics (NOVA) communities.

In practice, CSU professors spend up to ten weeks for each of two summers at the NASA centers. Design of academic year joint NASA-CSU projects is done during the summer as well as the development of "spin-off" joint NASA-CSU mission-related projects. Local and regional workshops at the CSU campuses and the NASA centers are conducted during the year to facilitate the exchange of information, as are continuing research and education efforts between NASA and CSU colleagues, including creating educational products (lesson plans, Web sites, etc.) and formative assessment of team-building activities.

URL:
http://projectalert.nasa.gov

Organization:
California State University (CSU)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center (ARC)

Contact:
ARC - J. W. Skiles, SETI, NASA Ames Research Center, Email: jskiles@mail.arc.nasa.gov; JPL - Edward Ng, Email: Edward.Ng@jpl.nasa.gov); CSU North - Ellen Metzger, San Jose Sate University, Email: metzger@geosun1.sjsu.edu; CSU South - Elizabeth Ambos, California State University, Long Beach, Email: bambos@csulb.edu; other ALERT leaders include Marguerite Syvertson, JPL, Email: mlss@scn1.jpl.nasa.gov

Education Level:
Undergraduate

Subject:
Earth System Science
Remote Sensing

Program type:
Curriculum Development/Support
Faculty Enhancement
Teacher Training (Pre-service)
 
 

Date Added to teachearth.com:
5/1/00