Chapter 10. Education and Outreach
Susan Buhr
The Beginning
Any history of CIRES education and outreach must acknowledge that efforts
in education and outreach have been ongoing since the beginning of
CIRES, made by individuals passionate about science and education, and
by organizations affiliated with CIRES. CIRES employees volunteer in
their children's schools, take part in science fairs and give classroom presentations
on their own initiative. The National Snow and Ice Data Center
has generated several data products tailored to the education
community, such as "Into the Arctic: Information and Educational Activities
for Studying Climate." The National Geophysical Data Center, in
cooperation with CIRES, hosts a vigorous center, Global Learning and
Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE). Furthermore, other
efforts within CIRES practice outreach to end-users of their research,
such as the Western Water Assessment work with natural resource managers
and the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research outreach
to decision-makers.
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This narrative is primarily concerned with the convergence of forces
within CIRES, the University, and funding agencies that motivated the establishment
of a formal CIRES Outreach Program, and with the evolution
of that effort. Over time, CIRES education outreach has been driven by a
desire to contribute to society, develop graduate students, demonstrate
good University citizenship, and respond to funding agency requirements.
Formal education outreach began at CIRES in 1989 with two projects,
one headed by Director Bob Sievers and Executive Director Howard
Hanson that provided semester-long research internships for undergraduate
students (see chapter three), and a second, a "Mr. Wizard-style"
presentation program for middle and high school students coordinated
by Rosella Chavez, assistant to Sievers. Hanson describes the motivation
for the programs in terms of developing graduate students and addressing
societal needs:
For as long as I can remember we said research and teaching aren't that
different, certainly not at the graduate level, and the more undergraduates
we can get involved, the better we will be in the university context ...
Some of the discussions in a way were self-serving; we're having trouble
getting grad students, we need to get younger students interested in environmental
science. Part of the strategy had been to reach out to undergraduates
and then to high school, so we've got them even earlier ... We
need environmental scientists because we have all these problems, and
also we need an environmentally scientifically-literate population.
Furthermore, Hanson acknowledged the need to alleviate the historical
Institute-departmental tensions described in chapters one and five, by
demonstrating good citizenship.
This goes back to the long standing criticism that the research institute
doesn't have faculty tenure positions, and doesn't teach, and we needed to
do stuff that the departments liked ... Contributing to the community, being
relevant, getting the University name in the community ... We were pretty
good about doing stuff within the University in a way that tried to keep on a
friendly basis. To the extent that we can, we do pipeline things, that is recruiting
on the behalf of the Chemistry Department and so on. Anything we
did that recruited students was implicitly for the departments.
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