The project goal is to increase the geographic and scientific literacy of Ohio's secondary teachers and students through expanded access to and appropriate use of data about the interdisciplinary sciences of the Great Lakes and how the lake systems change over time. To accomplish this goal the three-year project will
· make available to secondary science classes a set of new classroom activities using current Great Lakes data that address the subject matter objectives and process skills for the Ohio proficiency assessments;
· provide Sea Grant outreach to informal science education institutions on the south shore of Lake Erie, and col-laborate through them to reach additional education audiences;
· utilize on-line access and distance learning to facilitate access to Sea Grant/Great Lakes materials and data among teachers and students who cannot directly reach Stone Laboratory or other Ohio Sea Grant facilities and personnel;
· include in new curriculum delivery modes the teaching of skills reflecting the state of the art in the decision sciences, so that people may utilize their enhanced scientific literacy for individual and group decisions about environmental issues related to Lake Erie and the Great Lakes system.

For nearly 25 years the Ohio Sea Grant Education Program has been serving teachers in the Great Lakes region through classroom curriculum development, teacher enhancement workshops and credit courses, and contributions to the research literature that informs best practice. Changes in the audience of teachers, and new pressures on their ways of assisting learning, require that education delivery methods expand and move in new directions. While the systems we have been using are not "broken," they may be in need of an upgraded model for new times and new needs. We wish to involve more teachers in Great Lakes learning and teaching, but reliance on hard-copy materials and on-site professional development tells the audience we may not be in tune with modern opportunities and challenges. The new delivery modes will be e-curricula for students, distance education for teachers, and informal learning for both groups as well as the public that visits science/nature facilities.

Through development and implementation of these delivery modes, Ohio Sea Grant, with its Great Lakes science data and education expertise, will

• Expand the range of available Sea Grant materials into high school levels
• Introduce decision sciences into consideration of Great Lakes issues
• Demonstrate outreach through informal education networking
• Make effective use of distance learning for teachers' professional development
• Compile new forms of innovative curricula, in adaptable formats for available school technology
• Assist schools in meeting Ohio science standards for graduation
• Disseminate research data to new user groups.

The project will have three components whose tasks will be the focus of individual project years but which will culminate in the accomplishment of the overall goal at project end. They build upon each other and continue to pro-gress with input from participants (teachers and educators in informal institutions). In all the tasks we will build in the use of decision making tools: defining decision perspectives, making choices under uncertainty, and thinking about consequences. Deliberate attention to such aspects of Great Lakes science will make these education delivery modes unique in their contribution to Great Lakes education in Sea Grant.

Task 1. E-Curriculum development using Data from Research on Lake Erie
Using newly available databases on biological diversity and physical parameters of the Great Lakes, experienced teachers will work with project staff to develop high school curriculum activities that address specific parts of the Ohio Proficiency exam for graduation, and are primarily based in classroom technology to use interdisciplinary science. Access to Internet databases, while optimal for use of the curricula, will be facilitated with hard-copy sam-ples that feature downloadable database segments for use off-line. E-curriculum use will be encouraged through professional presentations by the project staff and developing teachers.

Task 2. Guide to Informal Education Opportunities for Great Lakes Systems
Educators from informal education facilities (museums, nature centers, etc.) on the south shore of Lake Erie will be joined in a consortium designed to let secondary schools know what they collectively and individually provide for meeting state standards and using Lake Erie subject matter. Packets of information will be assembled for schools and projects will be designed to attract secondary school groups to the facilities for science learning. Teachers will be employed to work with the facilities to develop ideas for higher cognitive curricula that will appeal to high schools. Decision making challenges will involve the public in dialogues with science as well.

Task 3. Offer Continuing Education Modules for teacher enhancement by distance learning
Teachers in Ohio and most other states are required to continue their educational growth, and they may do so by a variety of means that do not always involve University credits. Using the data and activities from Tasks 1-2, combined with existing Ohio Sea Grant Education materials, this project will construct brief modules for Great Lakes science and geography education via asynchronous distance learning. Each module will be designed to involve about 6-8 hours of content exploration and application in the classroom.

Evaluation of all three proposed tasks will be ongoing, so that mid-course corrections can be made to respond to what we are learning from the audience and from the cooperating teachers who are the critical summer staff. Several types of output and outcome measures will be collected. More difficult impact measures will sought as well both in the project period and beyond. These will be focused on the decision making aspects of scientific literacy, as personal choices relate to environmental issues of the Great Lakes.

Co-PIs team taught a 3-credit course in Curriculum Development for Environmental Decision Making, at Stone Lab in Summer 2002. Student assignments became the basis for curriculum development by the GRA and staff.

Three teachers were hired from the course to construct curriculum materials and test them through the academic year. Development is in progress. An internet site with 12 Great Lakes Decision Activities is now public at http://earthsys.sg.ohio-state.edu/decision/. The materials have been pilot tested in central Ohio Schools and revisions are complete. We see the need for additional topics, so we will incorporate development into courses taught in the coming year.

Four teachers were hired for summer assistance in Year 2 to collect information about informal education institutions that do Great Lakes programs in the Lake Erie watershed. Their reports are being used to construct an on-line searchable database for teachers.

The database was completed in summer 2004 and can be found on-line at http://earthsys.ag.ohio-state.edu/erieed. It contains over 100 informal education facilities in four states and is searchable by either geographic region, type of activity, or Lake Erie topic.