Director

A message from Dave Gosselin, Director for the NESEN

The Nebraska Earth Systems Education Network is a program provided by the online Master's Program for Science Educators. NESEN's objectives is to enhance K-12 Earth Science education in Nebraska and to improve teachers' knowledge and understanding so that students can become better informed about the complexities of environmental and natural resources.

About Dave Gosselin

Hi, I'm Dave Gosselin, a professor of Earth science in the School of Natural Resources. I am also the director of UNL's environmental studies program, which currently serves more than 100 undergraduate students. Over the past 15 years, developing educational programs in the area of Earth systems science has become my passion. My work in Earth systems science education started by providing professional development opportunities for K-12 educators as the director of the Nebraska Earth Systems Education Network (NESEN). The NESEN theme is to create a community among Earth science educators and scientists. For more information on NESEN, please see our homepage at http://nesen.unl.edu. My work with K-12 educators has involved traditional classroom teaching, summer workshops, and most recently the delivery of online, distance-delivered courses, as part of the Laboratory Earth professional development series. In 1999, I received the Catalyst Award from the Nebraska Association of Teachers of Science, a group that works closely with NESEN. The common theme among my research activities throughout my career has been geochemistry, water-rock interaction and fluid migration. Most recently, my work has emphasized understanding the occurrence of arsenic and uranium in public water supplies and trying to develop a more economic approach to dealing with this water quality issue. I have also worked to understand the relationship between groundwater and surface water. In this context, I have been involved in physical hydrogeologic investigations, groundwater-lake modeling, and the use of remote sensing to study variability in lake behavior over large geographic areas. .

Education

PhD - South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Geology (1987)
BS - College of St. Thomas, Geology (1982)

Research interests

Groundwater Chemistry, Environmental Isotopes, Groundwater and Surface, Water Relationships, Sand Hills Hydrology, Science Education, Dakota aquifer/stratigrphy/geochemistry, Isotope hydrology for environmental tracking, Nebraska Earth Systems Education Network, Water quality, Wetlands.