Education and SAIN

The Node is working to engage students, teachers, community members, and the public in general in collecting, analyzing, and mapping biological data in a web-based format under protocols such as the Global Learning Observations for the Betterment of the Environment (GLOBE).

Local Teachers in training Photo courtesy of Robert Keller

We are providing training for:

• Local teachers, enabling them to develop and implement classroom lessons that incorporate math and science by having their students participate in field-based ecological activities such as small mammal identification and handling, vegetation and flora identification, herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians) identification, invertebrate identification and handling, computerize ecological survey, and urban planning.
  
  
• Teachers representing each NBII Node, as the Cross-Node Educational Center for the NBII. We host teachers from every NBII node in the Tennessee River Gorge and provide them with GLOBE-based training so that they can provide their nodes with educational support and programs that uses students to collect and analyze environmental data to understand the interconnected cycles of the integrated ecological systems. In addition to this training, each incoming group will be trained in both biological monitoring protocols tailored to their own needs and the use of Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI).

Upper Blue Hole Falls, Holston Mountain - Carter County, TN. Photo by Chuck Jurgens,, used by permission

SAIN will continue interconnecting elementary education and the university system with regard to information literacy in the biodiversity and ecosystems sciences and in geographic tools and technologies for biodiversity informatics. The teachers from Bright Elementary School and Nolan Elementary School finalized their training in the UTC GIS course (Spring Semester 2002) and learned to utilize the Internet Map Server and GLOBE protocols. Both elementary schools have permanent study plots on their property to research local biodiversity and collect data (with assistance of their now GIS-savvy instructors) which is incorporated into the large-scale study of biodiversity in the Tennessee River Gorge. East Lake Elementary is joining our group of schoold this year.

Elementary school teachers returned in July of this year to assist in the education of 20 teachers from Hamilton County, TN and surrounding counties in GLOBE program protocols and GIS education. We are also continuing the development of an undergraduate curriculum in bioinformatics with a special emphasis in geospatial tools to be part of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga undergraduate program.

Geographic Perspectives
U.S. Programs & Activities | International | California | Central Southwest/Gulf Coast | Great Basin
Northern Rockies | Pacific Basin | Pacific Northwest | Southern Appalachian | Southwest

Text-only