AGI EARTH SCIENCE OUTREACH REVIEW
FEBRUARY- MARCH 2000 ***Earth Science Week Planning Meeting***

If you'll be attending the AAPG annual meeting in New Orleans next
month, please plan to attend the Earth Science Week Planning Meeting on
Tuesday, April 18, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Melrose Room of
the Hilton Riverside. This informal meeting will provide an opportunity
to share ideas for developing local Earth Science Week activities.
Please let me know if you'll be joining us by  email to outreach@agiweb.org.
 

***Earth Science Week Flyer***

After receiving the January update, the American Institute of
Professional Geologists and several other organizations requested an
electronic version of the flyer to reprint as well as a large number of
flyers to distribute. We still have thousands of copies left, however,
and we'd appreciate your help distributing them to your members,
teachers, youth leaders, librarians, park rangers, and anyone else you
know who might like to participate in Earth Science Week.
 

***New Poster, Minerals — Foundations of Society***

The new poster Minerals — Foundations of Society, will be available on
St. Patrick's Day, March 17. Although the poster was designed to
accompany the forthcoming 3rd edition of the book by the same name, the
poster will reach a much broader audience. In May, more than 65,000
teachers and geoscientists will receive copies of the poster in
professional journals including Science Scope, The Science Teachers,
the Journal of Geoscience Education, The Earth Scientist, and Geotimes. In
addition, several member societies will distribute the poster and
approximately 25,000 copies will be used in the Earth Science Week
information kits.
 

***Great Ideas for Earth Science Week***

From Liz Brosius of the Kansas Geological Survey: The Survey's
GeoKansas web site http://www.kgs.ukans.edu/Extension/home.html  has
information about the geology of the eleven physiographic regions. Later
this year we'll be putting at least one field trip guidebook online as well.

Lee Walkling of the Washington Department of Natural Resources
organized a four day lunch- time film fest. It was held at the Survey, and the
public was invited. She showed:


Lee also gave out bookmarks containing the recipe for the Mt. Rainier
birthday cake.
 

***Earth Science Outreach Advisory Committee Established***

AGI President Russ Slayback has invited each member society to appoint
a representative to the new AGI committee, which is charged with helping
the Institute reach its outreach and communications objectives. The
committee will meet for the first time April 28-29 at AGI headquarters.
In January, AGI centralized a variety of ongoing and developing
activities by placing responsibility for them in its new Outreach and
Communications program. The objective is to develop a multifaceted
program in cooperation with the member societies and other geoscience
organizations that will increase public appreciation and understanding
of the vital role that geoscientists and the geosciences play in
meeting society's needs, e.g., through basic and applied research that
addresses development and use of Earth resources, mitigation of natural
disasters, and stewardship of the environment. Current program
activities include Earth Science Week, Earth Science World, Inside
Science, "popular" publications, and internal and external
communications.
 

***Earth Science World Web Site***

The Earth Science World site, which AGI is developing in cooperation
with the member societies, provides a central entry point into the
Earth sciences on the World Wide Web. More than 30,000 unique
visitors have explored Earth Science World since AGI launched the site,
http://www.earthscienceworld.org, in September 1999. AGI gratefully
acknowledges the recent three-year grant from the AAPG Foundation to
provide partial support for development and implementation of a
web-based petroleum exploration game for Earth Science World.
 

***Inside Science TV***

Until this year, Inside Science has been a service that provided two
free 60-90-second science-news stories per month to TV affiliates.
AGI, with support from the U.S. Geological Survey, participated in
1998-99 by producing five geoscience news stories in the series. At the
October 1999 meeting of the Member Society Council, AGI provided
copies of a proposal from the American Institute of Physics (AIP) inviting
the AGI member societies to participate in an expanded Inside Science TV
service. The expanded service, which AIP launched in January 2000,
provides 12 stories per month, and it is syndicated. According Nielsen
ratings data, for the past two years, the average number of viewers per
Inside Science story has exceeded 5 million. To ensure that the
geosciences are appropriately represented to this broad audience, AGI
is working to raise $100,000 support from the member societies and
others this year for Inside Science. AGI plans to contribute $25,000. The
Geological Society of America and the The Society for Organic Petrology
have also committed funds. For more information about Inside Science visit
the Inside Science web site.
 

*** Schedule of Outreach Activities***