Digging for Data: Mining Geoscience Databases to Deepen and Expand STEM Learning Opportunities

Thanks to the development and deployment of federally funded satellite-, buoy-, and aircraft-based remote sensing instruments, continuous streams of Earth and space data are publicly available via online databases. This accessibility provides flexibility to explore geoscience data that are interesting and relevant to students--keystone components of the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") (Achieve 2013a). In this article, the author outlines activities that leverage archived geoscience data, and describe design considerations for a new 11th-grade interdisciplinary science course that draw on education research and practice. Through pairing of design considerations and application in the context of an urban under-resourced technical high school, the author illustrates ways geoscience databases can be used to realize "NGSS" vision, as well as expand possibilities.