Filming to start next school year — Fall 2011
The Gilbert M. Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education, in partnership with H2O, is poised to start filming a new segment of “Teaching with the Stars.” This innovative new video and web based program will extend current educational programs into the outdoors.
Video and educational programming will showcase two of H2O’s important initiatives: 1) to “develop critical thinking skills” using advanced technology, and 2) to provide “hands-on experience” in the watershed.
The project will feature new mobile technology and enhanced hands-on experiential learning. What this means is that when students are outside the classroom learning in the watershed, they may link to web and satellite based information and maps with hand held devices.
H2O cooperator Richard Boehm, Ph.D., Director of the Grosvenor Center, emphasizes the educational value of video and other instruction focused on teaching teachers.
“By teaching teachers how to teach watershed subjects, the depth of possible instruction increases by several orders of magnitude over the more traditional route of face-to-face professional development. Each teacher instructs dozens of students each year and teachers can adapt materials to best suit their student’s needs,” said Dr. Boehm.
Educators at the Harte Research Institute, River Systems Institute and Texas State Aquarium will be involved in developing video content. Filming and production will be done by the Agency for Instructional Technology.
New partnership for watershed education extends nationwide
H2O’s newly formed alliance with the Grosvenor Center represents a huge step in building a working partnership with schools and organizations in Texas. This partnership will also extend nationally as H2O’s innovative work may serve as a model for similar efforts elsewhere.
This alliance taps H2O into the Center’s other associations with the National Geographic Society Education Foundation and the Agency for Instructional Technology.
The Grosvenor Center is the only research and development initiative supported by the National Geographic Society to bear the Grosvenor name. Located at Texas State University, the Center produces technology-driven videos, demonstration materials and printed materials for classroom teachers and for the State Alliance teacher training program (http://www.ngsednet.org/community/about.cfm?community_id=94).
The association with the Alliance places the Center and H2O into position to support a national network of thousands of K-12 teachers, college educators, school administrators, and others dedicated to improving geography-based education with watershed educational instruction and materials.
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H2O (Headwaters to Ocean) is a cooperative project sponsored by the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University and funding partner, the Ewing Halsell Foundation which supports the project H2O. H2O is an experiential, technology-enhanced education program focused on water, from headwaters to the ocean (https://water-texas.org)