CURRICULUM

Name: Sphere Spotlight on 3D printing
Start: 2024-5-18T13-13-00-00
End: 2024-5-18T14-14-00-00
Location: Nurture Nature Center

Introductory text needed.

Observation and Discussion: Art/Data

“VTS-inspired” observation sessions of at least two images - an art piece relating to the topic of the unit, and a related geospatial data visualization.

Instructions
Artwork
Data Visualizations
Threaded Conversation
FAQs

Data Sketches

Using a creative thinking process, students create their own representations of geospatial datasets on tracing paper, then overlay those different “data layers” to discuss patterns and correlations.

Bridging Activity: Fence Posts

Students represent personal data, thoughts, and opinions in a graphic form and observe and discuss gathered responses.

Guided Discussion

Students review questions that arose during the first three steps and discuss where they might find the answers to those questions.

Although the time required varied among the teachers who developed and implemented their units for the project, the full unit typically required at least 3-4 class periods of at least 45 minutes each.

Observation and Discussion:
Art/Data
“VTS-inspired” observation sessions of at least two images – an art piece relating to the topic of the unit, and a related geospatial data visualization.

Instructions
Artwork
Data Visualizations

Data Sketches
Using a creative thinking process, students create their own representations of geospatial datasets on tracing paper, then overlay those different “data layers” to discuss patterns and correlations. Instructions
Artwork
Data Visualizations

Bridging Approach:
Fence Post Activity
Students represent personal data, thoughts, and opinions in a graphic form and observe and discuss gathered responses.

Guided Discussion
Students represent personal data, thoughts, and opinions in a graphic form and observe and discuss gathered responses. Instructions
Artwork
Data Visualizations

Institutions and People

Nurture Nature Center

Nurture Nature Center, located in Easton, PA, is a dynamic center for community learning about local environmental risks. Housed in a beautifully renovated, historic facility, where the staff uses a blend of science, art and dialogue programs to get the community talking and thinking critically about the local environment. Through a diverse set of programs engaging adults, families and organizations, we are helping communities to understand the science, policy and cultural implications of issues including flooding and food access, and ways they can prepare and make positive changes for the future.

Kathryn Semmens is the Science Director of the Nurture Nature Center. She holds a Ph.D. in environmental and earth sciences from Lehigh University. Kathryn’s interests focus on the nexus of science, policy, and community. Her responsibilities at NNC are to help advance the organization’s outreach efforts on scientific and environmental issues generally, with a special emphasis on floods, climate change, and social science research. She has served as P.I. on numerous grants including an IMLS funded community needs assessment, and NASA funded Science on a Sphere educational project. She serves as co-P.I. on a NOAA Environmental Literacy Grant that educates the local community about hazards and creates a shared vision of resiliency. Semmens will manage the project timeline, coordinate communication and collaboration, make sure the project is on track, oversee subawards, help with development of the PD program, recruitment of teachers, and organizing the logistics of the PD workshop to be held at NNC.

Keri Maxfield, is the Art Director of the Nurture Nature Center, has been working in the visual arts for over 25 years. Keri’s work ranges from the creative to the highly technical. She is skilled in design and visual communication of scientific data and social messaging. As Art Director, Keri is in charge of supervising and unifying the visual arts and arts education components of the Nurture Nature Center in accordance with its mission. Her interests lie in the overlap between art, science and society and she has managed five grants through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts that engage local artists and community members in creating visual art in response to local environmental issues. Maxfield will use her design expertise and experience and contacts related to arts-based teaching approaches to help develop the PD program, layout program materials, reports, and webpage, and advise on content related to the arts.

Rachel Hogan Carr is the Executive Director of the Nurture Nature Center. She holds a master’s degree in environmental policy design from Lehigh University, where she focused her research on improving flood risk communication through social science. Rachel helped to found NNC, and prior to that, worked as a community organizer and in urban real estate development. She has served as principal investigator on several flood-related research and education projects in partnership with National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 2011, Rachel was named Distinguished Informal Science Educator of the Year by the American Meteorological Society. She serves on the boards and leadership teams of several local organizations, including the Easton Hunger Coalition and Karl Stirner Arts Trail, Inc. She also serves on professional advisory boards including: National Weather Service Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center’s Customer Advisory Board; Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Residual Risk Subcommittee of the Technical Mapping Advisory Committee; State College Weather Forecast Office Integrated Weather Impacts Team. She has been active in Easton civic initiatives, including as a co-founder of the Downtown Neighborhood Association. Rachel is a Certified Floodplain Manager.

EDC/ODI

Education Development Center (EDC) is a global nonprofit that advances lasting solutions to improve education, promote health, and expand economic opportunity. Since 1958, EDC has been a leader in designing, implementing, and evaluating powerful and innovative programs in more than 80 countries around the world.

EDC's Oceans of Data Institute (ODI) is dedicated to transforming education to help people succeed in school, work, and life in a data-intensive world. We envision a world where everyone has the skills and knowledge to make informed decisions and achieve new insights and understandings using data.

Grounded in EDC’s long history of innovative education work, ODI staff work with partners from a variety of institutions, including scientists and engineers, educators and business people, researchers and developers to develop and test educational materials, conduct research to improve our understanding of what works in data education, and convene meetings of innovators and thought leaders to help shape our work to meet the needs of tomorrow’s learners.

Amy Busey is a senior research associate at EDC and member of the ODI team. She brings experience developing and testing data-centered science curriculum for elementary, middle, and high school students.

Randy Kochevar is director of the Oceans of Data Institute (ODI) at the Education Development Center (EDC). Trained as a marine biologist, Randy brings to the project more than 20 years of experience in science education and outreach. Over the past 5 years, as director of ODI, Randy has overseen an extensive portfolio of grant-funded projects designed to improve data literacy skills among k-16 students and to help colleges and universities create pathways to data science and analytics careers. On this project, Randy will participate in all materials development and testing, and will work with external collaborators in the data science education field to help broaden its potential impact and to ensure that it becomes part of the broader community of educators working in this field.

Erin Bardar is a Senior Curriculum/Instructional Design Associate at EDC and a member of the ODI team. She is a highly experienced instructional materials designer with expertise in earth science, space science, climate science, and data literacy.

CIRES

At CIRES, the Cooperative Institute for Research In Environmental Sciences, more than 900 people work to understand the dynamic Earth system, including people’s relationship with the planet. An institute at the University of Colorado Boulder, CIRES has partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) since 1967. Areas of expertise include weather and climate, wildfire and water, changes at Earth’s poles, air quality and atmospheric chemistry, water resources, solid Earth sciences, education and more. The Education and Outreach team at CIRES has recently become the CIRES Center for Education, Engagement and Evaluation (CEEE).

Hilary Peddicord with Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Center for Education, Engagement and Evaluation (CEEE) works as the Education Lead with the Science On a Sphere® (SOS) team for NOAA Education. Hilary is a secondary science teacher who brings more than a decade of experience educating with SOS data visualizations and has been deeply involved in curating the datasets for all three platforms in the SOS software suite. She has been instrumental in the development of SOS Explorer® (SOSx), a virtual flatscreen globe that shows many of the SOS datasets. The freely available application has won awards including the 2020 Federal Labs Consortium Technology Transfer Impact award. Hilary designed, operated, and taught three years of accredited professional development training for Denver-metro area teachers using SOS and prototypes of SOSx. Peddicord led the efforts in curating data visualizations and use of SOSx, participated in the development of materials and testing in her own education networks, directly engaged with teachers and advisors, and disseminated the project and toolbox through networks and conference presentations.

J. Sickler Consulting

Sickler Consulting is a private, woman-owned evaluation and research firm that builds better understanding of the learning that happens in out-of-school experiences.

Jessica Sickler (Principal, J. Sickler Consulting) is an independent research with over 15 years of experience studying learning in formal and informal environments. A major area of work is the study of educational tools, curricula, and structures that support learners and educators in developing essential data literacy skills. She leads research in the Streams of Data project to understand the assets and habits of mind that fourth graders bring to thinking about data representations, and how scaffolded learning experiences can help develop data literacy skills. She has previously used the VTS framework to evaluate preschool students’ gains in critical thinking skills from art museum field trips. Sickler will lead all research efforts of this project, including collaborating with the full team on implementation of the design-based research elements with participating teachers. She will be responsible for design, implementation, analysis, and reporting of findings to the project team and wider field.

Michelle Lentzner is an Evaluation & Research Associate Michelle with JSC. She brings professional and academic experience in visitor studies, museum studies, and anthropology. Prior to joining JSC, Michelle worked as an evaluator at several institutions, including the Milwaukee County Zoo, the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. She holds an M.A. in Museum Studies from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and a B.A. in Anthropology from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Teacher Partners

Teachers in Cohort 1 include:

Dave Curry, Newtown Middle School, Newtown, PA, 8th Grade

Doug Eccher, Peak Academy, Montrose, CO, 6-12th Grade

Alyssa Solis, Irving STEAM Magnet School, Los Angeles, CA, 6th Grade

Caitlin Brenton, Flowing Wells Junior High School, Tucson, AZ, 8th Grade

Mark Goldner, Heath School, Brookline, MA, 7-8th Grade

Teachers in Cohort 2 include:

Cynthia Hopkins, Kaffie Middle School, Corpus Christi, TX, 7th Grade

Nessa Goldman, Olympic Peninsula Academy, Sequim, WA, 6-8th Grade

Sarah Slack, I.S. 223 The Montauk School, Brooklyn, NY, 8th Grade

Ben Horner, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, NY, 6th Grade

Mary Ann Cowley, Otto Middle School, Plano, TX, 8th Grade

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Open House

18may12:00 pm4:00 pmOpen HouseProgram:Art,Community,Science

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Sphere Spotlight on 3D printing Nurture Nature Center 518 Northampton Street, Easton, PA

18may1:00 pm2:00 pmSphere Spotlight on 3D printingProgram:Science,Sphere Shows

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(Saturday) 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm ET

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Nurture Nature Center

518 Northampton Street, Easton, PA

Event Details

Are you curious about 3D printing? Have you ever seen a 3D printer work? Learn all about 3D printing, what resources are needed to support it, its strengths

Event Details

Are you curious about 3D printing? Have you ever seen a 3D printer work? Learn all about 3D printing, what resources are needed to support it, its strengths and weaknesses, and its impact on the environment in this Sphere spotlight.

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22may12:00 pm4:00 pmOpen HouseProgram:Art,Community,Science

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25may12:00 pm4:00 pmOpen HouseProgram:Art,Community,Science

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