Korine Kolivras, co-sponsored by the Geography and Regional Development and the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth

Saguaro National Park, divided into East and West districts on either side of Tucson, receives between 500,000 and one million visitors per year. The park caters to both children and adults through interpretive displays, activities, and educational programs. My outreach program will serve to educate visitors to Saguaro National Park on global and regional environmental change through two main focuses.

The first portion of my outreach project will involve the development of interpretive displays on climate and climate variability in the Southwest. My contact at Saguaro National Park East, Melanie Florez (District Interpreter), expressed a desire to update the displays within the visitor's center. A planned expansion of the center and updating of the displays in 2004 was pushed back to at least 2006 due to budget restrictions, and my outreach program will provide a way for the center to be updated to include more useful information on climate in the Southwest, including climate variability and change. Satellite images will be a significant part of my displays, as they illustrate important climate processes. One example of an exhibit that I will create, based on the needs of the National Park staff, is a display explaining the role of the rain shadow in creating desert regions. A satellite image that shows Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) will perfectly compliment the display by showing the more heavily vegetated windward side of a mountain as compared to the drier leeward side. Another exhibit that I will create will be an interpretive display using satellite images to demonstrate change over time and interannual climate variability. Images showing the vegetation response to above average precipitation will be compared visually to images illustrating the impacts of below average precipitation.

The second part of my outreach program will lead to the development of workshops geared toward children, but also interesting to adults, in the visitor's center on climate variability and regional environmental change. The park currently has environmental education programs and summer camps, but none explicitly focus on climate impacts in the Southwest. My project will coordinate very well with the programs currently in place that examine adaptations by desert plants and animals. I will work together with park staff members to create activities that will provide participants with hands-on experience in examining climate data and interpreting satellite images. I have found through teaching undergraduate courses that students are much more interested and involved in learning if they are challenged to develop and answer research questions using real data than if they are asked to answer very basic, simple questions. I will therefore design the workshop around the scientific method to give participants insight into how scientific research is conducted, and how conclusions are reached and evaluated. The end result of each workshop will be a series of conclusions that answer a scientific question established at the beginning of the session. After developing the first workshop project, I will work with park staff members to lead workshops, and incorporate them into the summer camp and education programs. Workshop themes will revolve around global change and climate variability topics, and will include subjects such as the use of satellite images in climate change and disease research, an analysis of a global temperature time-series, and the impacts associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation in the Southwest.

This outreach program will reach a diverse population. Local school children that visit the national park on school field trips or with their families will be exposed to the displays and workshops, as well as domestic and international visitors to the park. In this way, the science of climate variability will reach both adults and children. Workshop participants, most often school groups visiting the park, will develop an even greater understanding of climate research, and will acquire tools with which to understand scientific results. Through interactive display development and improvement and the design of a workshop series devoted to climate variability, the public will develop a more sophisticated understanding of scientific research in general, and more specifically of climate variability and environmental change research.

Interpretive Display and Workshop Topics:

-- Rain Shadow Effect and Deserts
-- Vegetation Response to Climate Variability
-- El Niño in the Southwest
-- Climate Change and Disease Ecology
-- Global Temperature Patterns

Anticipated Timeline, Year 1:
-- August 2002: meet with National Park staff
-- September 2002: begin development of rain shadow effect interpretive display
-- November 2002: complete display, meet with staff for review
-- December 2002: display completed exhibit in Visitor's Center
-- December 2003: begin development of workshop activities on El Niño in the Southwest
-- February 2003: complete workshop activities, meet with staff for review
-- February 2003: begin conducting workshops for field trip groups
-- March 2003: begin work on vegetation response to climate variability display
-- May 2003: complete display, meet with staff for review
-- June 2003: display completed exhibit in Visitor's Center
-- June and July 2003: participate in summer camp programs

Teaching and outreach will be an important part of my career as a university-level educator and researcher. After earning my Ph.D. in geography, I intend to get a job where I can focus on both teaching and research, and integrating the two. Many students have a very basic understanding of climatic processes, and very few are aware of the types of research conducted in climate variability and environmental change. Having taught a natural sciences general education course during the summer several times, I recognize the need for comprehensive science education. I have developed my courses so that students are exposed to the use of the scientific method through hands-on laboratory exercises that highlight actual research projects, which keeps the students interested and involved. I have created my own set of laboratory exercises in which the students learn as much from the process of analyzing data and answering questions as they do during lectures. This summer, I will teach a 200-level climate class, and I have already begun to outline my lectures and assignments. The main course project will involve the writing of a scientific paper following data collection and analysis. I thoroughly enjoy teaching and interacting with students, and I am excited at the prospect of continuing to improve my teaching skills and to develop fun, interactive projects for my students.

I think it is important for universities to become involved in the community through both education and research activities. Universities can be a great resource for elementary and secondary education teachers and others who interact with the public, and can work together with those outside of the university to improve the public's understanding of science and scientific results. I have participated in several small outreach projects, including the Arizona State National Geographic Bee, which I found to be extremely rewarding. The experience that I will gain as a NASA Space Grant Graduate Fellow will be very useful to future outreach projects that I will develop once I acquire a university-level position. I am very excited at the prospect of combining research and education through outreach, and will continue to make scientific research accessible to the public throughout my professional career.