NSF project offers hands-on experience to deaf students

From: Gallaudet - May 27, 2005

MEDIA ADVISORY

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Susan Flanigan
Marketing and Public Relations Coordinator
Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center
Susan.Flanigan@gallaudet.edu

NSF project offers hands-on experience to deaf students

WASHINGTON: From May 26-31, 2005, a group of geological researchers, 21 students from five schools for the deaf, and their Earth System Science teachers will be participating in "Faults in the Field," a trip to Utah to study fault systems (for information on faults, see http://earth.leeds.ac.uk/faults/).

This field study is the culmination of a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation to integrate research on fault system evolution at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst with Earth System Science learning at the high school level. The aim of the project is to foster student interest in solid-Earth Science through hands-on activities and involvement with professional researchers. The students participating in the research are part of a web-based, collaborative Earth System Science program for deaf and hard of hearing students called SOAR-High (http://csc.gallaudet.edu/soarhigh/SHMAHOM.HTM).

The trip itinerary includes visits to the Wasatch Mountains outside Salt Lake City, the San Raphael Swell, Arches National Park, and the Moab Fault. The students will use the techniques and understanding they gained from classroom experiments with sandbox models of faults to observe, sketch, and measure actual active and ancient faults within a variety of rock types.

The students will be posting a travelogue from on site, to view the log, visit: http://tinyurl.com/7fsdp.