There was (and still is) a need for child-friendly sites that provide students with interesting and relevant information about wildlife conservation research.
Research Triangle Park, NC (Vocus/PRWEB) January 17, 2011
Follow sea turtles on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Track elephants in the African nation of Cameroon. Travel with the Healing Seekers to Madagascar. The NC Zoo Society links science and the web with FieldTripEarth, a website that makes it possible for students and teachers to interact with field-based wildlife researchers at work around the world.
This weekend, Executive Director Russ Williams and Mark MacAllister, Coordinator for Online Learning Projects for the NC Zoo Society, will be demonstrating the FieldTripEarth website at ScienceOnline2011, the fifth annual international meeting on Science and the Web.
FieldTripEarth is the NC Zoo Society’s conservation education website. It serves K-12 classrooms in all 50 states and about 140 countries around the world.
The NC Zoo Society in partnership with the NC Zoo created the FieldTripEarth website as a response to student’s intellectual interests in wildlife as well as their curiosity of the wildlife researchers. “There was (and still is) a need for child-friendly sites that provide students with interesting and relevant information about wildlife conservation research,” Williams said. “Likewise, there was (and still is) a need for websites where teachers can obtain high-quality raw materials for teaching across the curriculum—materials like narrative articles, photos, videos, datasets and map.” These ‘raw materials’ are provided by more than 150 researchers who have written for the site, and are designed to be easily integrated into day-to-day teaching activities across all of the academic disciplines. For example, many teachers use researchers’ field diaries to teach journaling and other literacy skills, while others use geographic location datasets generated by animal tracking projects to teach their students mapping concepts or coordinate systems.
Known as a Landmark Website, The NC Zoo Society’s FieldTripEarth has been honored by The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) as one of the 21 best websites for learning and curriculum development. These websites are considered the "best of the best" by AASL.
The NC Zoo Society is an independent association of members, committed to fostering enduring personal connections between people and nature. It strongly supports the North Carolina Zoo and its projects that educate and inspire people about their natural environment. The Society, through the Zoo, conserves wildlife and wild places throughout the world, promotes scientific research and advocacy, encourages relationships with nature through outdoor recreation, and generates respect for animals and their welfare.
In addition to providing learning resources directly to classrooms, the NC Zoo Society, through FieldTripEarth, also includes a significant outreach component focused on Kindergarten-12th grade students and teachers through training workshops. The website can be accessed at http://www.fieldtripearth.org, and can be used by anyone free of charge.
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