august 2001 Nr. 2 - 23/08/01

new members

We welcome in our community ...

as member of the scientific advisory board:
Prof. Konrad Mauersberger - Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg / Germany
field of research: polar clouds, stratospheric processes
Prof. M. Tausch - University of Duisburg / Germany
field: photochemistry, teaching methods in chemistry / author of textbooks

as regular member of the community
Debbie Ross - University of Cambridge / UK
Dr. Vicky Slonosky - Environment Canada / Toronto, CA

as first non-scientific member
Zsuzsa Becze - English teacher from Hungary

We thank the new supporters for their commitment and hope all the best for a good cooperation in the future.

EC evaluation

The proposal submitted to the 'Raising Public Awareness' Programme of the European Union has been rejected by the European Commission. But (citation):
'As the relevance of the initiative is so high the evaluators would welcome an improved proposal very much and like to stress this explicitly.'
The complete text of the evaluation will be published soon linked to the blackboard of the internal members area.

To give an overview of the flaws and demanded improvements:
- contacts with schools are only potentially present and not yet clearly established
- pedagogic models are not defined
- communication tools and contents should fit the problems of the particular countries
- a partnership with IGBP, WCRP and IHDP is recommended
- the project lacks a clear leadership and management (taking initiatives, setting of agendas, control of planning)
- the outcome is not well defined (What is 'basic' knowledge?)
- thematic fields are too much defined by the information senders
- educational expertise and partners should be included in the consortium
- schools/teachers/pupils should be taken into consideration from the beginning
- professional web design and web writing are not included

From this overview it becomes clear that we need a kind of statute, a mananging committee for scientific and educational questions and definitly an involvement of schools and educational institutions on a national scale. To realise this, the current members have to focus more on making local contacts.

conferences / public relations

Who goes to ...?

So far the most important news. Last not least a 'thank you' to the people and institutions, that provide texts and illustration for ESPERE. It is published now in the partners section: Many thanks to ...

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