Heather Almquist

Professional Title
Research Associate
Organization/Institution
University of Montana
About Me (Bio)
Heather Almquist, Ph.D is an associate researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Geography at The University of Montana. She is a Quaternary geologist with over 25 years of research, teaching, and administrative experience, and formerly served as Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Maine and co-Director of the Maine NSF EPSCoR program. She served as PI for the NSF-ITEST Paleo Exploration Project, which provided professional development to K-12 teachers in the application of geospatial technology to geological research, and currently leads the NSF-DR K-12 Cyber-Enabled Earth Exploration project, which is developing learning materials in earth science for middle school classrooms.
Personal Website
http://www.cas.umt.edu/geography/people/facultydetails.cfm?id=1639
Keywords
Earth Science

Cyber-enabled Earth Exploration: Development of Materials for Middle School Earth Science Instruction

University of Montana
08/01/2009

This project is developing new instructional materials for middle school earth science classes that incorporate emerging cyber-enabled technologies such as Google Earth as a transformative data analysis tool. The materials emphasize the use of claims, evidence, and reasoning in the exploration of volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics, leading students through a process of discovery to help them build a deeper understanding of the driving forces and resulting manifestations of plate tectonics.