Beetles: Science and Teaching for Field Instructors

Thoughtful perspectives on pedagogy and climate change in this article on BEETLES partner, Sarah Johnson, of Wild Rose Education. It even features a photo of our Learning Cycle Sticker!
https://topotheworld.org/environmental-educator-sarah-johnson-on-learning-to-be-still-teaching-climate-change-in-2023-and-shifting-from-individualism-to-community-action/?fbclid=IwAR1VS-8hMdYIaIcwkDPpyOGYtM_VJyztGDi2LcnppDf3kMDxnIFaxhkh-1k

Environmental educator Sarah Johnson on learning to be still, teaching climate change in 2023, and shifting from individualism to community action | Top o' the World Sarah Johnson, Carbondale-based environmental educator and owner of Wild Rose Education, discusses climate education and research, local solutions, and adopting new perspectives for a changing world.

Poetry and Science: Pathways to Presence
For National Poetry Month and Earth Day, BEETLES team member Emilie Lygren just had an article on using poetry in outdoor science published through Ten Strands. Check it out! Also please share other resources you know of on this topic in the comments.

Poetry and Science: Pathways to Presence - Ten Strands In celebration of National Poetry Month and Earth Day, we’re excited to share with you a story by Emilie Lygren, outdoor science educator and poet, where she explains her deep connection with nature through writing.

Please check out our 3 min Emerging Leaders video and please "like" it. We're in an NSF STEM Diversity & Inclusion Video Exhibition competition. The video that gets the most likes wins prize money and we want to give it to our Emerging Leaders!

Emerging Leaders Cohorts: An Affinity-Based Model for BIPOC in Environmental Education This video was selected as a finalist in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) STEM Diversity and Inclusion Video Exhibition! To address the systemic margi...

Hello, International Ocean Literacy Colleagues,
Happy New Year!
Version 4 of the International Ocean Literacy Survey (we hope the final version!) is ready for testing! Please distribute the appropriate survey link below to educators who can administer the survey to students 15-17 years old. We are trying to obtain as many completed surveys as possible in each language by March 22, 2019. Once again, thank you so much for your support and participation in this large, community-based, volunteer effort.
Some background: As you probably know, we started this unfunded project 3 years ago when the need to measure progress in the development of Ocean Literacy in our respective countries was raised by the Ocean Literacy community. We recently published the results from Version 2 of the International Ocean Literacy Survey (IOLS). These results helped us create Version 3 that we then submitted for review to our IOLS Advisory Board consisting of international marine researchers, communicators, teachers, and psychometricians. Their feedback lead to Version 4 that has now been translated into 12 languages and is ready to be distributed and tested.
Here is what you can do: If you have access to any students ages 15-17 that are native speakers of the languages listed below, please have them complete the survey online. Attached are information letters for both parents and students, and a script to read to students before they take the survey. They can also be found at https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-instructions. If you don’t have access to students but still want to help, contact the teachers and informal educators you know, and ask them to give the survey to their students. We need at least 200 respondents in each language to be able to analyze the data.
Feel free to translate the attached letters and script if necessary when you distribute the survey.
Please be sure to send us an email telling us that you are helping so that we can acknowledge you in future publications.
What happens with the data? Data from this field test will be analyzed centrally at Lawrence Hall of Science. We will provide findings back to the community as soon as the analyses are complete. Partners (like you!) who help us distribute the survey will be able to access their own data. We will continue testing the survey until we are satisfied that we have a truly valid and reliable, open-source, comprehensive International Ocean Literacy Survey that can be freely used by educators around the world. We are very close to realizing this goal!
Links to the IOLS Version 4 in various languages:
1. Catalan: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-catalan
2. Chilean: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-Chilean
3. Chinese: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-chinese
4. Dutch: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-dutch
5. English: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-English
6. Greek: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-greek
7. Japanese: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-japanese
8. Korean: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-Korean
9. Polish: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-polish
10. Portuguese: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-portuguese
11. Spanish: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-spanish
12. Tagalog: https://tinyurl.com/IOLS-tagalog
If you would like to translate the survey into another language, and you are confident that you can gather more than 200 responses, please contact us.
Thanks so much for your help!
And thanks to the IOLS partner organizations that support the development of the Survey:
• Asia Marine Educators Association
• Blue School—Ministry of Sea of Portugal
• Canadian Network for Ocean Education
• Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
• Marine Conservation Society
• Marine Learning Center of Japan
• National Marine Educators Association
• National Ocean Sciences Bowl
• National Taiwan Ocean University
• Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean
• Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile Centro de Conservación Marina
• Surfline
• The Hydrous
• The Oceanographic Society of Japan
Warm regards,
Craig Strang, Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley
Géraldine Fauville, Stanford University
Mac Cannady, Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley

International Ocean Literacy Survey — Géraldine Fauville  Despite considerable investments in Ocean Literacy over the last 15 years, it has been difficult to show progress of the Ocean Literacy movement, in part, because no widely adopted measurement tool exists. Previous researchers on ocean learning have used a wide variety of methods, target groups, l...

Check out this great video from José González

Behind the Scenes With José González Go behind the scenes with educator José González as he shares his mission to nurture a lifelong love of nature in Latino children, their families, and their ...

Sending out our thanks -

Sending out our thanks

Parts of BEETLES professional learning sessions come from a course some of us taught for years at UC Berkeley, in which we got to try out different ways to teach at the university level in active ways. Others we work with, like Catherine Halversen (who has played a small but important role in BEETLES), have been working to improve university level instruction for years. University instructors really should be teaching in ways that we know are effective and research-based.

Hey Higher Ed, Why Not Focus On Teaching? Stanford's Carl Wieman won a Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work in quantum mechanics. With a new book, he continues his efforts to spark systemic changes in how universities teach science.

On top of all the other great stuff we all are providing students in outdoor science, natural history is also important!

80 Percent of Young Environmental Scientists Could Use More Natural History Training Natural history is vanishing from the academic ecosystem, and it may be harming our ability to make big theoretical advances

Presented for folks at California Dept. of Education today. Also got to meet the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson. And hang out with cool folks from Ten Strands. But most importantly, I got to look at bugs and plants and stuff on a beautiful Spring day.

Hey environmental educators and environmental education supporters! There are lots of awful things we're having to fight against lately. This is a great thing we can support! And I know it's great cause my buddy and co-leader of BEETLES, Craig Strang is co-chair of the California Environmental Literacy Committee, and is spearheading it. And cause I know it will support the work of my co-workers and friends Jedda Foreman Vanessa Lujan Kirk Anne Taylor and Tessaly Jen as they work with environmental education leaders throughout California.

I just signed this petition calling on California to fund environmental education. I just signed this petition calling on California lawmakers to fund environmental education by passing S.B. 424. Will you join me?

Here is the program that much of BEETLES is based on. Kevin Beals and I learned most of what we have spent the rest of our careers exploring in a 10 week field course taught by Ken Norris, Professor of Natural History at UC Santa Cruz. Ken, who became known as the Professor of Wonderment, began each field trip with, "Come on. We're off on the greatest adventure of our lives!"
http://news.ucsc.edu/2014/03/packard-foundation-gift.html

$2-million gift supports natural history fieldwork at UC Santa Cruz A $2-million gift from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in honor of the late professor Kenneth Norris will help ensure that UC Santa Cruz continues as a leader in natural history and at the forefront of educating students to become environmental leaders.