About CLEAN

2010 Review Camp

Led by science education experts of TERC, CIRES, NOAA, NREL, SERC the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Pathway project builds on the efforts of the Climate Literacy Network and the establishment of the Climate Literacy: Essential Principles of Climate Science to steward a broad collection of resources that facilitate students, teachers, and citizens becoming climate literate and informed about "the climate's influence on you and society and your influence on climate". We will focus on integrating the effective use of the resources across all educational levels—with a particular focus on the middle-school through undergraduate levels (grades 6-16) as well as to citizens through formal and informal education venues and communities. Focusing on climate science and solutions, including the role of energy in our lives, the CLEAN project has three major components.

1. CLEAN Collection- Through the identification and stewardship of existing, high-quality digital resources, a collection of educational resources will be built that address climate literacy and energy awareness culled from the wide range of collections of such resources. These resource will be selected as they support the Essential Principles. They will align with a) the AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks for Science Literacy, b) the National Science Education Standards; c) the NAAEE Excellence in Environmental Education Guidelines for Learning, and d) the latest science as published in the IPCC, CCSP (http://www.climatescience.gov now http://www.globalchange.gov/) and other climate assessment reports. Resources accepted into the collection will be reviewed both scientifically and pedagogically. Digital resources will periodically undergo a technical review (for broken links etc). In addition, resources that address cutting-edge issues will be updated as climate and energy science and technology evolve.
2. CLEAN Strand Map- The CLEAN collection will utilize the leading NSDL browse tool, the NSDL science literacy maps. Building on existing work to help teachers discover how scientific concepts relate to one another by connecting concepts, standards, and NSDL educational resources, the CLEAN Pathway work will greatly improve educators' access to both educationally and scientifically sound resources relating to climate and energy. NSDL Science Literacy Maps serve teachers and students in to finding resources that relate to specific science, technology and math concepts. The maps illustrate connections between concepts and depict how concepts build upon one another across grades. Clicking on a concept within the maps will show NSDL resources relevant to the concept, as well as information about related AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks and National Science Education Standards. Elements of this will be developed during a workshop in the Summer of 2009, held in Washington D.C. by NSDL, and Ted Willard of AAAS Project 2061, a member of this project, will support this effort by tightly aligning Climate Literacy principles and concepts to AAAS Science Literacy benchmarks.
3. CLEAN Community- The project will facilitate of the effective use of the resources with teachers, students, and citizens. This will involve a range of activities including:
1. Teleconference-online workshops to help educators and citizens use resources in the collection and help teachers integrate them into classrooms. These will include: i) Two-hour workshops that introduce teachers and citizens to software tools, data, inquiry activities, and information, which will be modeled after the successful Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET) Workshops . ii) Multi-day events for faculty on teaching specific aspects of Climate and Energy modeled after the On the Cutting Edge virtual workshop on Hurricanes and Climate Change.
2. Building and organizing an online community using Web 2.0 social networking tools to facilitate collaboration, interactivity, and knowledge sharing among users. The tools that may be deployed, based on our planned front-end "landscape studies," include wikis, podcasts, blogs, RSS feeds, and "Ning" software. The tools will be assessed for their effectiveness while building the capacity of the education community to integrate best practices and resources into their schools and classrooms.
3. Facilitate and expand the existing Climate Literacy Network to include existing and emerging climate and energy education experts and enthusiasts.