Standing Committee Meeting Report Education and Public Outreach

October 2015

Action Items  - EPO Standing Committee Meeting

October 15, 2015 - October 16, 2015

IRIS HQ, Washington, DC

  • Survey IRIS faculty for needs assessment of teaching repository for seismology courses plus more general geo-related courses.
  • Create an undergraduate/graduate level seismology education listserve using the new IRIS Message Center
  • Pursue a plenary at AAPT annual meeting; arrange a joint webinar with AAPT; write article for The Physics Teacher
  • Consider how to hire a student to work on adding metadata tags to EPO web pages to increase visibility via Google searches
  • Ask nearby teachers how they get their earthquake information
  • Contact Glenn Kroeger to determine status of SeismicCanvas software
  • Clarify QCN specifications and current capabilities.  Develop draft plan for future activities
  • Invite representative from NAGT-GER to present at next EPOSC meeting 

Meeting Summary

The EPO Standing Committee met on October 15-16, 2015 at IRIS headquarters. The attendees for part or all of the meeting included: Mariela Bao, Mladen Dordevic, Perle Dorr, Bill Gutsch, Michael Hubenthal, Steve Jaume, Maureen Long, John Louie, Fred Schroeder, Derek Schutt, Stefany Sit, Danielle Sumy, John Taber; Remote attendees included: Michael Wysession, Tammy Bravo, Elisabeth Nadin, Keith Svedrup

The meeting began with a review of the minutes and action items from the previous meeting, followed by an overview of the program highlights from the past 6 months and the priorities for the next 6 months.  The 3-year funding outlook was discussed, as was the status of the proposed activities in the original NSF SAGE proposal.  This was followed by a discussion of the Future Facilities final report and recompetition planning.

The annual Great Shake Out earthquake drill occurred at 10:17 and the committee dropped, covered, and held on during the drill.

There was a phone conversation with Keith Svedrup from the Division of Undergraduate Education at NSF, focusing on funding opportunities available through DUE.  This was followed by discussions relating to a range of curriculum resources and their dissemination. This included an update on the status of the InClass database and web pages, and the status and plans for undergraduate and graduate resources, including a teaching repository and potential interactions with SERC.

Approaches were considered to increase interactions with AAPT.  Then a status update was presented regarding ECI working group activities and a range of new and follow-on activities were considered.  An review of the status of new EPO evaluation activities was presented followed by a status report on the IRIS/SSA Distinguished Lectureship, and the new FieldXP program.  There were then reports and discussion on collaborations with UNAVCO and EarthScope.  This was followed by classroom seismology discussions that focused on deliverables for the Mars InSight project and interactions with InSight collaborators.   A variety of options were considered for ongoing involvement in the Quake Catchers Network. 

The second day began with an executive session that was followed by an update on the IRIS workshop and a planned half-day undergraduate education workshop to be held the day before the IRIS workshop.  This was followed by a prioritization of projects for use of potential FY15 carryover funding.   Finally, recommendations were made for new standing committee members for 2016.