The Bay Area Earth Science Institute (BAESI), is a cross- disciplinary, summer workshop for secondary school earth and physical science educators. Starting in July, 1990 BAESI will bring together experts from academia, government agencies, and industry in a community wide effort to improve the earth science backgrounds and teaching skills of middle and senior high school educators in the San Francisco Bay Area. Each summer 38 science teachers from local school districts will meet at San Jose State University to receive in-depth instruction on topics ranging from earthquakes and plate tectonics, mineral and energy resources, to weather, climate and water issues. The workshop will run for four weeks, Monday through Friday. Topic development in the Monday through Thursday morning sessions will be complemented by afternoon sessions involving interactive laboratory experiments and innovative teaching method presentations. These sessions will include computer-assisted instruction and training on BAESEnet a computer network designed to aid participants after the summer workshop is completed. Each Friday participants will travel to the field to learn how natural features such as fault scarps, landslides, beaches, and local resources such as university seismographs and mineral collections can be used to enhance classroom topic development and provide alternatives to traditional science teaching methods. Participants will receive stipends, commuting costs, and materials packets from the National Science Foundation and industry sponsors. Participants will also be given the opportunity to earn up to four units of advanced college credit. In addition, industries and other businesses who sponsor participants from economically disadvantaged school districts will provide support for classroom earth science projects and field trips during the following academic year. Each year workshop participants will help in the development or modification of the BAESI educator's workbook, a compendium of the most useful and innovative classroom, laboratory and field exercises. This workbook will also contain participant work addresses and will be available to all previous BAESI participants. Outstanding participants will be targeted for the Mentor Teacher program and will be asked to serve as instructors in future workshops. The program strongly encourages minority educator participants and participants from school districts with high minority enrollments. Cost sharing in the amount of $169,700 equals 73% of the NSF award.
