Important elements in the success of Earth Observation Day are the identification and development of activities that teachers and professors will want to use because they address state science, geography and technology standard requirements and will be able to use because they are ready to implement, practical, and relevant.  To this end, a planning/design workshop will be held during the summer of 2007 that will bring skilled K-16 educators together with AmericaView scientists and educators involved with research, teaching and outreach in their states.  This workshop will be hosted by faculty/researchers from several StateView consortia, each of which will select and send K-16 partner educators to the workshop.  College-level faculty who prepare K-12 teachers will be included in the workshop, as will faculty skilled in assessment. 

The workshop is designed to establish the connection between K-16 educators and the AmericaView academic consortia in their states; faculty and researchers from the consortia will be mentors during development and implementation of Earth Observation Day activities.  Primary outcomes of this workshop will include 1) identifying existing resource curriculum materials available from NASA, NOAA, National Geographic, GLOBE, the U.S. Geological Survey, and others; 2) initiating the process of developing new curriculum materials with relevant local and regional focus, and 3) developing plans to assess the implementation of selected activities. Another outcome of the workshop will be the formulation of plans for an Earth Observation Day event that will be hosted by the initial StateView consortia and the K-12 partners in the Fall of 2007.  Curricula selected during, or developed as a result of, the workshop will allow educators to implement activities during the 2007 Earth Observations Day and to extend these activities into longer-term and interdisciplinary projects where appropriate.

Following the Earth Observation Day event in 2007, educators will work with their StateView consortium mentors to assess and upgrade activities, and to plan and implement Earth Observation Day at multiple sites in selected states during Earth Science Week of 2008.  The consortium mentors will be available to answer questions from the educators via e-mail and telephone, make visits to the educators’ schools, work with the educators to develop and edit curriculum materials, facilitate web conferences, and provide remote sensing imagery and other resources for the curriculum materials.  This will be followed by another round of assessment and upgrades, with the goal of a nationwide implementation of Earth Observation Day during Earth Science Week of 2009 with support from StateViews across the nation.