Grambling State University was selected to participate as one of the cohorts for the NASA Innovations in Climate Education NICE Grant. According to Dr. Linda B. Hayden (Principle Investigator for the Grant), “Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) in Elizabeth City, North Carolina has joined with the University of New Hampshire (UNH) in Durham, New Hampshire under the NASA Innovations in Climate Education (NICE) grant to empower faculty of education programs in Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) to better engage their pre-service teachers in teaching and learning about global climate change through the use of NASA Earth observations sets”.
Dr. Hayden further states that, “professors from MSIs received training with Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and GES-DISC Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis Infrastructure (GIOVANNI) to engage pre-service teachers in facets of climate education.”
As a result, two Grambling State University faculty members participated in NICE Workshops during Summer 2011 and Summer 2012 that were held at Elizabeth City State University. These faculty members were Dr. Waneene Dorsey, professor of Biology and the Earnest Everett Just Endowed Professor; and Dr. Loretta Walton Jaggers, professor of education (Department of Curriculum). Dr. Loretta Jaggers also participated in the 2013 NASA Workshop at the University of New Hampshire. Through participation in the NASA Workshops, both faculty members received a wealth of diverse resources, information, and hands-on activities that served as a foundation for presenting the Climate Education concepts to candidates enrolled in their classes.
Dr. Jaggers made several Climate Education presentations to the candidates enrolled in ED 452. ED 452-Advanced Seminar Methods is a 6 hour undergraduate course that is designed to basically focus on the selection and use of appropriate content, activities, instructional strategies and assessments necessary for early childhood and elementary students. One of the signature projects requires candidates to use the Common Core State Standards to design grade specific instructional lessons and design appropriate materials for implementing the grade specific lessons. Therefore, as a result of participating in the in the diverse Climate Education presentation (that included information and resources provided in the NASA Workshops), the candidates were able to effectively design and implement Daily Lesson Plans and that related to specific Climate Education concepts.
As a result, Dr. Jaggers served as a co-presenter at the 2013 AGU Conference with Dr. Linda B. Hayden (Elizabeth City State University), Dr. Darnell Johnson (Elizabeth City State University), and Dr. Steve Hale (University of New Hampshire). The presentation was entitled, ” The NASA Innovations in Climate Education Project: “Instructional Strategies for Expanding Climate Change Concepts within Reading/Literacy Skills”.
The 46th Annual AGU (American Geophysical Union) conference was held in San Francisco, from December 9-13, 2013. During the presentation Dr. Jaggers highlighted the signature Climate Change projects that were developed and implemented by the candidates enrolled in her courses.
As a result of participating in the climate Education Signature project the assessment results revealed that the candidate gained a great deal of knowledge about the impact of climate Change Concepts on our everyday lives. The candidates also stressed that they now have an increased awareness and understanding of “how to” infuse Climate Education throughout the instructional process. They further commented that they have a greater awareness of the need to emphasize Climate Education concepts through-out the P-12 curriculum.
The candidates expressed that their students expressed that they learned a great deal about Climate Change Concepts. The candidates also stated that the student made some of the following comments:1) Climate change activities were fun and exciting; 2) We learned a lot about Climate Change; 3) I have a better understanding of how Climate Change really makes a difference in our lives and what we do”.
There have been several other NASA Innovations in Climate Education Project activities that have been implemented at GSU.
Dr. Waneene C. Dorsey, Associate Professor of the Department of Biological Sciences at Grambling State University involved her students in a Water Quality Management project during the Fall 2013 semester. Specifically, Dr. Dorsey used a technology infused strategies that involved diverse resources from the NASA NICE Summer workshops during the 2011 and Summer 2012 workshops. These highly interactive multi-media workshops were held at Elizabeth City State University.
Finally, on November 15, 2012 teacher candidates from GSU participated with a Polycom conference with students from Elizabeth City State University who are in the (CERSER) program (Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research). The teacher candidates presented their Climate Change projects that they had implemented at selected partnership schools.
Grambling State had five candidates who made presentations on Informational Texts and resources that they designed to aid in the implementation during the instructional process.
The candidates included Shakeydra Hill-Designed Hurricane Informational Text for First Graders; Yu Feng Hung-Developed Hurricane Informational Text for upper elementary Grades; Kaleisha Lewis-The Cause of Tornadoes-Display Board; Deanna Ellsworth-Hurricane Display Board for upper elementary Grades and Selea Hayes-Global Warming Display Board for lower elementary grades.