USGS Focus Group Manual

Increasing Effectiveness of Regional Earth Science Education with Help from a Focus Group

The USGS Focus Group Manual was developed to help interested parties, from diverse regions of the country, evaluate uses of USGS materials and determine future needs. Based on USGS recommendations, the focus group addresses three main questions about selected USGS written materials. (Specific materials and web sites are listed in the manual.)

1. Accessibility - What is the educator's primary or preferred method of accessing new educational materials?
2. Format - Given a choice of a variety of educational materials, which format do the participants find most applicable to their classroom/teaching situation?
3. Content - What earth science topics would participants like to see as a focus for future USGS efforts?

Additional questions were formulated to address details about the web pages:

1. What format (appearance and organization) of web pages is desired?
2. What would educators like to see as content (information for students, information for teachers, actual data from local earth science programs, what topic of earth science are of interest to the educators, should the web page include activities and background information, etc.)?

The manual includes step-by-step instructions for putting together and evaluating results of your own focus group session. A focus group script and evaluation worksheet are included in the appendices.

Click here to download a copy of the USGS Focus Group Manual.

For more information please contact the Environmental Resources Center, University of Wisconsin at 1-800-WATER20 or erc@uwex.edu.

© 2008 by Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.