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”  (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 1999, 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 was 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).

To view award abstracts from previous competitions, click on FY 1998 Awards and FY 1999 Awards.

The FY 2000 Program

In FY 2000, the Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) conducted a third annual competition in geosciences education through program announcement NSF 00-38. As in FY 1999, the program consisted of two elements: 1) Awards to Facilitate Geoscience Education and 2) Application of Digital Libraries to Undergraduate Earth System Education. Element 2 was again jointly reviewed and funded by the Directorate for Geosciences and the Division of Undergraduate Education of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources. The educational digital library special emphasis represents an intersection of interests of the two NSF directorates, and formed an integral part of the overall FY 2000 competition, as in FY 1999.

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.

Element 2: Application of Digital Libraries to Earth Systems Education

Significant funding from this element went to support the development of an important new facility for geoscience education, the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE). In addition, individual-investigator projects that promise to disseminate high-quality content via DLESE were funded through this element.

To view the award abstracts from the FY 2000 Geoscience Education competition, click here. Some of the abstracts contain hot links to the project homepages.