Background

In FY 1998, NSF’s Directorate for Geosciences inaugurated a competitive grants program in geoscience education by issuing a program announcement titled “Awards to Facilitate Geoscience Education”  (AFGE, NSF 97-174).  In scope and philosophy, the program followed the recommendations of the report of the Geoscience Education Working Group (Geoscience Education: A Recommended Strategy), convened by GEO and its Advisory Committee for Geosciences.

The purpose of the program is to engage the best of the geoscience research community in education at all levels, to foster active learning in the geosciences, and to promote the integration of geoscience research and geoscience education.  The program is intended to catalyze the development of highly innovative programs which show promise for having a broad impact in the future, especially where support might not otherwise be available.

In FY 99, the "Awards to Facilitate Geoscience Education" (AFGE) competition was repeated as the first of two elements of a larger grants program titled Geoscience Education. The second element is a special emphasis area titled "Application of Digital Libraries to Undergraduate Earth Systems Education." Review was conducted jointly by GEO and the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR). The present Geosciences Education Program Announcement is a reissuance of that for FY 99 modified to reflect significant developments within the community.

The educational digital library special emphasis represents an intersection of interests of the two NSF directorates, and will form an integral part of the overall FY 00 competition, as in FY 99. (January 2000)

To view abstracts for awards made under the FY 1998 AFGE competition, click here.

The FY 1999 Program

In FY 1999, GEO issued a new program announcement titled “Geoscience Education” (NSF 99-44), which consisted of two elements.  Element 1 was a repeat of the Awards to Facilitate Geoscience Education competition.  Element 2, managed and funded jointly by GEO and the Division of Undergraduate Education of NSF’s Directorate for Education and Human Resources, was titled “Application of Digital Libraries to Undergraduate Earth Systems Education.”

Element 1: Awards to Facilitate Geoscience Education

Proposals were received for Element 1 for a wide variety of projects involving geoscience education at all levels: K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and public/informal.  The proposals came from all kinds of institutions: research universities, large and smaller state universities, colleges, community colleges, university consortia, professional societies, and small corporations.  As in the previous competition, some of the best proposals involved creative partnerships, the marriage of scientific and educational expertise, and the innovative use of modern communications technologies.  The proposals were reviewed by a panel of 12 distinguished geoscience educators coming from a variety of institutions: universities, oceanographic institutions, research institutes, museums, an educational professional society, and a community college.

To view the list of successful awards, click here.  Some entries in the list contain links to individual project home pages.  Some of the awards contain a digital libraries element also appropriate to Element 2 of the solicitation.  These are indicated by the designation “(DL)” at the end of the title.

Element 2: Application of Digital Libraries to Earth Systems Education

Funds allocated to Element 2 went to support a consortium organized to develop a prototype digital library, the Geoscience Digital Library, which will form the testbed for an ambitious developing community effort to establish a national Digital Library for Earth System Education.  Members of the GDL consortium are the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, the Keck Geology Consortium, the Earth Systems Science Education Program of the Universities Space Research Association, the University of Colorado, and the Alexandria Project of the University of California-Santa Barbara.

Parallel awards were made to two institutions in the consortium, with subawards to the other member institutions.  To view the GDL award abstract, click here.