DLESE is an information system dedicated to the collection, enhancement, and distribution of materials that facilitate learning about the Earth System. This policy provides broad guidelines for building collections to serve this goal. Users include educators and learners, at all educational levels, in both formal and informal education settings.
The scope of the DLESE collection is Earth system education, with particular emphasis on interdisciplinary areas. The collection seeks resources that bring the Earth into the classroom or other learning site, and which demonstrate the application of science to solving real world problems. The collection shall favor resources which convey linkages and connections: the general with the specific, observation with interpretation, theory with application, global with local. The collection shall favor materials that are well-documented, easy to use, bug-free, motivational for learners, pedagogically effective, scientifically accurate, and which foster mastery of significant understandings or skills.
The types of materials to be collected include:
Research and education materials, and sources of content:
- audio clips.
- displays/representations of data (including visualizations, graphs, tables).
- images, including photographs.
- graphics, including drawings and diagrams.
- text (journal articles, summaries, abstracts, arguments, theses, policy documents).
Tutorials and learning resources:
- assessment tools (including exams, quizzes, questionnaires, self-assessments).
- lesson plans, syllabi and curricula.
- interactive tutorials about an aspect of the Earth (for students).
- interactive mini-tutorials about a specific aspect of pedagogy (for faculty).
- learning activities (including guided inquiry sets, modules, problem sets, classroom and lab activities, case studies, homework exercises).
- field trip guides (for real field trips).
- virtual field trips.
- tools to look at and analyze data.
- calculators and converters.
- models and simulations.
- software programs.
- tools for creating learning materials.