Welcome to the CLEAN CAFE. I'm Mark McCaffrey, a member of the CLEAN Team. I work at the University of Colorado at Boulder for CIRES, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, where, among other things, blog about climate literacy and related topics: http://cires.colorado.edu/blogs/mccaffrey/

We're really excited about the launch of CLEAN, which isn't just a reviewed and annotated collection of the "cream of the crop" of online resources, but also, with your involvement, a community of scientists, educators, curriculum developers and others interested in increasing our individual and collective understanding and ability to respond to the massive climate, energy and sustainability challenges we face.

So, please take a moment, tell us a little about yourself and why you are interested in CLEAN. And come back often as we explore how best to use online resources to increase climate literacy and energy awareness.

I'm Mary Ball, a professor of Biology at a small liberal-arts college in East Tennessee. My passion is K-12 environmental education in Tennessee. So when SAMAB (the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Project)announced the theme of its November conference in Gatlinburg, TN, was to be Climate Change: Science to Action, I proposed a session for the strand on Communicating Climate Change on Climate Change Education: Resources and Challenges. I am happy to have found CLEAN just in time to share at the SAMAB Conference your "going live" with your list of reviewed teaching resources!!

Hi, I am Ed Geary, Director of The GLOBE Program (www.globe.gov) at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. At GLOBE, we are currently developing a worldwide Student Climate Research Campaign that will launch in fall 2011. We are very excited about the climate resources that will be accessible through the CLEAN website as well as the potential to enhance these resources with Climate teaching, learning, and assessment activities suggested by our worldwide community of Students, Educators, Scientists, and Partners.

Greetings from the Midwest, from a city similar to Boulder. In fact, Boulder residents often describe their home as "the Madison of the Rockies".(!) And one reason that Madison Wisconsin and Boulder Colorado are both great places to live is that sustainability is important to a majority of the people who live there. It's important to me. Sustainability and climate mitigation. And of course, climate change education. Which is why I like my job working for CIMSS (the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It's great to see the CLEAN network launched and off to a such a beautiful start. I am the Ed. Outreach Coordinator for ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing), an NSF science research team. We are studying paleoclimate records in the sediments off the coast of Antarctica, and developing new materials for both formal and informal educators (www.andrill.org/education). We are working with many terrific climate projects including CLEAN, and look forward to finding new and better ways to communicate the science of climate change.

Thank you from NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) for putting together this welcome educational site. I am Carolyn Harris and work on education activities at NASA GISS in New York City. Since 1993 our education program has focused on involving New Your City area students and educators (grades 7-16) in our climate research both at our lab and back at school. Our lab is involved in community-wide (and external) discussions about how we might best contribute to climate and science literacy efforts. Looking forward to my involvement in CLEAN and discussions that will help shape our new education initiative to contribute in meaningful ways to climate education.

Hi, this is Georges Dyer, VP of Programs at Second Nature - we're a national non-profit, based in Boston, that promotes Education for Sustainability (EfS) with a primary focus on the higher education sector.

We're the supporting organization of the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) - a network of over 670 colleges & universities that have made the institutional commitment to promote education and research on climate and sustainability, and pursue climate neutrality in their campus operations. (learn more at http://www.acupcc.org and see all of the climate action plans submitted to date at http://www.acupcc.org/reportingsystem)

Strategies and actions for fulfilling the academic component of the Commitment and ensuring all graduates are climate- and sustainability-literate is a challenge, and we're thrilled about this network and platform. Thanks so much.

This is David Ruble from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. I am the agency Environmental Education Coordinator and Community Education Specialist. For the past year, I developed an 'Introduction to Climate Science for Virginians'.

I'm Lynne Cherry,author/illustrator of popular children's books such as THE GREAT KAPOK TREE. I'm currently Visiting Scholar at INSTAAR at U. Colorado. Since the publication of HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT OUR CHANGING CLIMATE: SCIENTISTS AND KIDS EXPLORE GLOBAL WARMING, co-authored with Gary Braasch, I've been focusing on making films documenting youth success stories to empower and inspire young people to fight climate change. I encourage teachers to share the films and help kids start school CO2-reduction programs or clubs. Watch the films at YoungVoicesonClimateChange.com
With so much media misinformation, CLEAN will play a crucial role in helping teachers find scientifically accurate climate education materials. Thanks!

Hi - my name is Kristen Record. I teach physics at Bunnell HS in Stratford, CT. and am also the 2011 CT Teacher of the Year. I am interested in, and committed to, "science for all". I think climate literacy is a an excellent means for teachers outside of "science departments" to get involved in cross-disciplinary learning... after all, we will ALL have to deal with the consequences of our society's decisions and actions on this topic!

Hello. This is Kristen Poppleton and I manage the Education Program for the Will Steger Foundation. We are a non-profit based in Minneapolis focused on climate change education and outreach. We were established by polar explorer Will Steger in 2005 and our mission is to create programs that foster international cooperation and leadership through environmental education and policy. I look forward to contributing and learning of opportunities through CLEAN that can be used through our professional development opportunities, curriculum development and the graduate course I teach. Our website is: www.willstegerfoundation.org

Hi ... My name is Gregory Louie.

I am a seventh grade science teacher at a school in Durham, NC that specializes in interdisciplinary project-based learning.

Our mission is to "prepare the next generation of problem-solvers for complex world."

I'm hoping that the CLEAN community can somehow assist us in our mission.

Ideally, we would like to find, modify and/or create learning activities in which students are challenged to adopt the professional practices of a specialist to solve an authentic problem.

Some areas of potential interest include:

Issues: Consumption of natural resources and its impact
Global climate change and biodiversity
Service learning

Middle School Friendly Learning Technologies:

Remote sensing and other Real-world datasets
Statistical and mathematical analysis software
Google Earth and GIS


I look forward looking through these materials.

Greetings,
My name is Mike Sixtus and I teach Chemistry and APES in a suburban public school just south of San Diego.
I've been teaching APES for 10 years and Science for 26 at the high school level. While I will likely be retiring in June (Golden Handshake) I would like to keep involved in this group and the various discussions. My MS is in Marine Physiological Ecology and I have a background in Marine Science as well.

Hello, all! My name is Cori Mykoff, and I'm the Development Officer at TERC in Cambridge, MA. I've worked closely with the CLEAN team for the past few years, and am currently working on a way to create a strong CLEAN community in the New England region. I've you'd be interested in being a part of such a community, let me know at cori_mykoff@terc.edu. Thanks!

I've always been interested in issues of education policy and in conservation and the environment, so it's a particular personal pleasure for me to be working with this project.

Hi all, I am Pete Modreski, with the U.S. Geological Survey, in Lakewood, CO. I am part of our group responsible for "public communications", and what I do includes public & educational outreach, and all aspects (proactively, or by answering questions) of helping inform the public about what USGS does and what kinds of useful information we can provide. I present and take part in seminars, workshops, classes for teachers, field trips, booths at conferences, you name it. My own scientific background is in geology, geochemistry, and mineralogy, but my work means that I try to stay current (such as I can) in "all" areas of earth and environmental sciences.

Hi -- I'm Stephanie Chasteen, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I've been involved in promoting research-based science education techniques for the past several years (working within the physics education research group at the university).

I'm now working in the Outreach office, focused on bringing the university climate resources to K-12 audiences, with our platform website -- http://learnmoreaboutclimate.colorado.edu.

I'd love to know about other organizations doing education programs focused on local climate change that we might use as models, as well as Colorado organizations or teachers who would like to partner with us or could use our scientists' assistance in their educational programs in some way. We're really happy to see CLEAN getting so much interest, as this can serve as a real cornerstone for the climate change education community.

Hi -- I'm Dave Finnigan, and my program, aimed at K-5 and K-8 schools, is http://climatechangeiselementary.org. I've refined this one-day activity program now in 17 schools in 5 states and I'm ready to train recent college graduates to deliver it in schools in their communities. Our program uses the CLEAN concepts throughout.

In a nutshell we start with a teachers meeting in the morning before school, then I take each grade level in the gym or cafeteria for one class hour giving each grade a different, and age appropriate, piece of the climate puzzle. We use music, movement, games, skits and slides to learn about one part of the Planet. Then we meet for an all-school assembly at the end of the day to put those pieces together.

That same evening the parents come in for Family Night, and each family creates a Family Sustainability Checklist of the things they promise to do to reduce their carbon and water footprints. Students and parents commit to do everything on their lists by the time the kids graduate from high school. We put the kids in charge and tell them that every time their parent does something on the list they should give them a hug and thank them for helping create a "clean green future."

Because individual PTAs make a contribution to our non-profit foundation to support these presentations, our project will be self-sustaining for individual Presenters. I hope to meet other members of the CLEAN community as I go around the country getting this program started in every region. If you are interested in participating in any way, I can be reached at davefinnigan at yahoo.com.