Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) and the University of New Hampshire (UNH) propose to partner in an initiative designed to increase the quality and quantity of climate change education for pre-service teachers at Minority Serving Institutions in the United States. ECSU and UNH have collaborated extensively over the last six years to improve STEM education, in general, and at the undergraduate and secondary levels specifically. The proposed initiative, entitled "Engaging Minority University STEM Education Professors in the Science of Climate Change," will leverage our past experiences working together and the outstanding climate change research and education at our institutions to improve STEM pre-service teacher preparation. This project addresses Objective 1: "Increase the number of underrepresented/underserved students prepared to teach climate change content within STEM subjects," through Higher Education Objective 1.4: Course Development.

We propose to work with science educators and instructors from Minority Serving Institutions across the U.S. The faculty invited to participate will be those who teach such classes as Secondary Science Teaching Methods and Educational Technology. We will provide them with climate change science content and pedagogical approaches to allow them to incorporate units of climate change education in their existing courses. Our goal is to empower these faculty to better engage their pre-service teachers in teaching and learning about global climate change through the use of NASA Earth observation data sets. This IGCCE project will impact teaching first on college campuses within science education classes, and as pre-service teachers transition into in-service teachers, the impact will extend to elementary and secondary schools.

The proposed project builds on an existing NASA Global Climate Change Education (GCCE) project titled "Engaging Students in the Science of Climate Change," headed by Dr. Mary Martin, who is a Co-I on this project. The existing GCCE project (2010-2012) is developing state-of-the-art climate change curricular materials for high school students with a focus on the use of NASA Earth observation data. Its instructional modules are grounded in an Earth System Science approach and integrate current global climate change research into its educational activities. The developed materials meet Climate Literacy Principles, and are aligned with the Science as Inquiry Standards as laid out in the National Science Education Standards. Developed modules, possibly modified to be appropriate for pre-service teachers, will be available for the proposed project.

Under the proposed initiative, project staff will conduct a one-week summer workshop each summer (2012-2013) for 16 science education faculty from Minority Serving Institutions. The summer workshops will be taught as a collaborative effort by ECSU and UNH team members, who bring expertise in climate change science content and in science education, and extensive experience working with NASA Earth observation datasets. Following each workshop, participants will receive individualized assistance from two ECSU graduate students via a Help Desk, and backed up by the leadership team through a network of support (including a Facebook community) to provide technical, content, and pedagogical assistance. Participating faculty, graduate students, scientists, and science educators will work in small groups to develop posters, oral presentations, and peer-reviewed papers that describe the process, challenges, and outcomes of this project. Travel funds are budgeted for all participants to attend conferences to present results. Learning Innovations at WestEd will collaborate as an external evaluator on the project and provide guidance during all phases of project implementation, as well as a reporting of final results on reach and impact.