Opportunities and Challenges for Education and Outreach at NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network), a new NSF Large Facility

Abstract:

As a new NSF Large Facility, NEON (the National Ecological Observatory Network) collects continental-scale ecological and environmental data to support research and education on large-scale ecological processes. The Observatory provides data, infrastructure and educational resources to scientific, educational and general public audiences. We designed NEON’s Education and Outreach (E & O) activities to meet several high-level goals, including (1) facilitating public understanding of ecological science, (2) providing tools to use NEON data, (3) educating the next generation of ecologists, and (4) enhancing diversity within the ecological community. The suite of activities we developed ranges from online resources for using NEON data to a Citizen Science project to traditional undergraduate internship programs and workshops for graduate students/early career scientists.

The NEON Construction Project represents one of the first large facilities that included E & O activities as set of deliverables with defined requirements in parallel to other components of construction. This approach proved to be both an opportunity to build a multifaceted E & O program in collaboration with NEON science and engineering, and a challenge as competing priorities sometimes left E & O resource development teams without necessary technical expertise. The result, however, is a robust suite of online educational resources, citizen science opportunities, and in-person training programs. Early evaluation efforts have helped us fine tune our programming to meet the needs of target audiences, including diverse undergraduate students, graduate students, scientists, faculty, edcuators, and citizen scientists. Moving into Operations, we envision an evolving suite of resources and programs that further NEON’s mission and engage audiences in “doing science,” both by using NEON data in a diversity of contexts and participating in our citizen science opportunities.