Lisa Gardiner

Lisa Gardiner develops content and classroom activities on Windows to the Universe to support Earth system science, polar science, and climate science education for students, teachers, and the public. She is a co-creator of the Climate Discovery series of professional development courses for secondary science educators offered through NCAR Online Education and develops and leads professional development workshops associated with NSTA and other conferences for educators. She joined the Windows to the Universe team in June 2002.

Lisa studied geology and marine science as an undergraduate at Smith College and paleoecology at the University of Georgia, where she completed her Ph.D. in the middle of 2001. Her dissertation led her to interesting islands in the Bahamas where she studied how marine life on the sea floor form communities amidst changes in climate and sea level, and how hurricanes affect where fossils can form in this environment.

Lisa began working as an environmental educator in 1991 at Mass Audubon, teaching elementary level students about wildlife in eastern forests and the workings of a small farm. Since then she has taught Earth and environmental science with other informal education programs and geoscience at the college level. At the Colorado Mountain Club's Youth Education Program, Lisa developed Earth and environmental science programs for area middle schools that focused on the Rocky Mountain Region. During graduate school, she taught at the University of Georgia Department of Geology and volunteered for Eco-Reach, and outreach program bringing environmental science programs to local schools. She has been involved with museum exhibit development for the Georgia Museum of Natural History and the Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum.

In addition to writing for the Earth section of Windows to the Universe, Lisa developed the educational content for the NCAR Kids' Crossing web site and created the accompanying teacher's guide Kids' Crossing in the Classroom. Lisa is also the author and illustrator of the children's books What's Up with Altitude? and Catastrophic Colorado and the illustrator of the NASA-funded Elementary GLOBE book series, introducing Earth system science at the elementary level, and the NOAA-funded Ducks in the Flow: Where Did They Go?

Last modified December 1, 2008 by Lisa Gardiner.
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