Note from the editor
Several readers noticed that the last issue was number 100. While I thought at the time I should maybe say something about its significance, I decided that perhaps it was unnecessary. Now, with Issue 101, which sounds like a freshman college class, I thought I would take the opportunity to interrupt the regularly scheduled newsletter program to thank everyone who faithfully sends in their news. Without the source material, this newsletter would not be possible (don’t get any ideas!) and it has proven to be a useful communication tool as well as a resource for monthly and quarterly reports to granting agencies. So thanks and keep up the good work! - jmp
On November 5th-6th the Pisgah Forest Institute (PFI) held its first in-service training workshop during the 2004-2005 academic year. Titled "What Goes Around, Comes Around", the course focused on recycling and composting. Surveys completed by recent participants in PFI workshops indicated that recycling and composting were subjects of particular interest. Among the instructors and discussion leaders were Jeff Brookshire, an Operations Supervisor with the Transylvania County Department of Solid Waste Management, who spoke about their recycling and waste disposal efforts in addition to leading a tour of the county landfill in Rosman, NC. Holly Bullman, a Solid Waste Planning Technician with the Land-of Sky Regional Planning Agency, related practical advice on reducing the quantity of discarded materials and facilitated an activity to demonstrate how much everyday waste can either be reduced, reused or recycled. She also guided the participants through her agency's Mobile Environmental Learning Center (MELC) which seeks to address the need for source reduction education, increase participation in the existing recycling programs and increase awareness of household hazardous waste issues. MELC has a wide variety of hands-on and take-home educational materials for both children and adults. The mobile center is housed in a trailer that was parked in the Brevard College lot and open to the participants as well as the general public. Ms. Keefe Harrison, a Waste Prevention Specialist with the Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance unit within the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDNR) exposed participants to web-based resources such as www.p2pays.org as well as www.recycleguys.org and www.re3.org which are outreach efforts aimed at two different demographic groups to educate and encourage recycling. She also reviewed www.cleanup.org and www.howstuffworks.com/landfill.htm. Brian Rosa, an Organic Recycling Specialist with the same organization as Ms. Harrison's, presented a talk on composting. In addition to a wealth of recycling and composting literature, each participant received a bin and instructions to initiate a vermiculture - composting involving earthworms - demonstration. Participants earned one Continuing Education Unit as well as eligibility for Criteria 3 credit in the North Carolina Environmental Educators (NCEE) certification program. This workshop was formulated and facilitated by PFI Operations Assistant Jessica Sharp and Operations Coordinator Heather Cosby.
The Institute staff has initiated planning for a second 2004-2005 in-service training course. This additional offering, which will focus on weather (another topic of considerable teacher interest), will be held in February. William E. Angel and Axel Graumann of the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville will be involved in the planning and presentation of the workshop subject matter and hands-on activities. These scientists also serve as instructors for PFI's Earth/Environmental Science for Elementary Teachers. That course will be offered again on July 24-29, 2005.
PFI’s website is located at www.brevard.edu/pfi.
KceeI participated in Keystone College’s Homecoming Day Parade on Saturday, October 16th. The parade was part of Keystone’s Reunion, Homecoming and Family Day Activities during the weekend of October 15-17. KceeI Assistant Director Tim Eichner, along with Joe Kasulaitis, Scott Harris, and members of the Keystone College Science Club accompanied the “Sugar Wagon”, Keystone College’s Maple Sugaring Operation tractor. The sign on the wagon highlighted Keystone’s various environmental partners. |
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KceeI and the Willary Water Resource Center hosted a special Instructional Program Planning Council (IPPC) meeting on Wednesday, November 3rd. The IPPC is composed of approximately one representative, teacher, administration, or staff, from each of the 20 districts in the local area. Approximately 27 members of the IPPC council attended. The session began promptly at 9:00 a.m. with a continental breakfast. Howard Jennings, Director of KceeI welcomed the attendees and presented initial introductions of Tim Eichner, Director of Willary Water Resource Center and Assistant Director of KceeI; Deanna Haluska, KceeI Operations Coordinator; Patricia Bederman-Miller, Chair, Natural Science and Mathematics Division; and Dr. Robert Cook, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Water Resource Management Program.
Howard presented on the history of Keystone, its on-campus environmental partnerships, a recently-produced maple syrup video, the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid program sponsored in October, field biology courses offered at Keystone, and a poster of Keystone’s On-Campus Environmental Partners (1) (2). Tim Eichner and Howard Jennings offered information on the formation and role of the Willary Water Resource Center, the Tunkhannock Creek Watershed Atlas, and Keystone’s weather station. The attendees were directed through the Atlas with a narrative guide and were given Tunkhannock Creek Watershed Atlas mousepads. A narrative guide to the Atlas may be found here.
The highlight of the program was KceeI – its formation and mission, and information about its successful 2004 courses, and the 2005 offerings. Dr. Robert Cook introduced the Water Resource Management Program at Keystone and presented on continuous stream monitoring and Keystone’s partnership with the University of Minnesota. The session was followed by a catered lunch with closing comments by Dr. Edward Boehm Jr., President of Keystone College and Charlotte Ravaioli, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the College. Many potential partnerships were forged and KceeI has already received several inquiries into the 2005 courses.
KceeI’s website is located at www.kceei.keystone.edu.
Barat Education Foundation
Fall 2004 has been a time of preparation and continued development at the Barat Education Foundation. The months of September and October were occupied with pilot testing of three student projects. Several teachers are currently making arrangements to implement their projects with students. They will provide feedback to the Barat AAM staff for the continuous development process.
The BEF Teacher Fellows project includes 19 teachers who have been actively involved since March 2004 in creating, developing, testing, and implementing the program. Their work was celebrated in August with the completion of the first phase of the projects and Web site. Here are some reactions from our team:
Effective teachers are life-long scholars. It's exciting to have a tool
available, like the Library of Congress, to use with my own academic
development in and out of the classroom. Even greater are the implications
for teaching students to take control of their learning and instructing them
to use the Library of Congress as a research tool.
As a Fellow I have learned more effective ways to search the Library of
Congress and have developed new conviction [about] the importance of teaching
primary sources. Using the project created by the Fellows I plan to have my
students research an event in history that happened on their birthday and
report to the class the information they find. I am grateful to have been
selected to work with such an innovative group of people and look forward to
implementing these projects in the fall.
Justine Braskich
Hawthorne Elementary
Being a part of this fellowship has been an exciting and enriching
opportunity. I am now more likely to take advantage of the wonderful
resources the Library of Congress has for teachers. For example, I can
now bring my students closer to history's past using photographs and
other primary source documents.
I was also very impressed by the flexibility of Ms. Decker. My partner
and I were assigned to a project that did not meet the needs of our
students. We were given the opportunity to create our own project that
we and many other teachers will use. Not only am I proud of our
accomplishments, but excited to implement the project with my students!”
Lisa Herner
Co-author, Civil War Perspectives and Photos Web Quest
Lake Zurich Middle School South
The “Illinois Heroes” project has been pilot-tested with 4th grade students in Barrington, IL. Implementation was smooth and yielded great results. Barat AAM staff members are currently waiting for the finished materials and student testimonials. Look for them in the next report.
Barat AAM staff members are creating online modules to help teachers prepare to implement the projects with their students. The Project Preparation/Certification modules will take about four to six hours to complete and will provide teachers the opportunity to review all teacher support materials and test out the student website.
Barat’s AAM program website is located at: www.americanmemory.org.
Governors State University
October has been a time for focusing on teaching strategies at GSU. Luci Sweder has been offering online weekly support sessions using “Illuminate.” This interactive program has been a fantastic way to offer online assistance between class sessions.
Also, WebCT is rapidly becoming an integral part of GSU’s AAM teaching strategy. Students are posting discussion threads and offer one another assistance with their projects. Graduate students are gently eased into using WebCT by first being required to post their project topics. From there, discussion seems to be a natural progression.
Plans are underway for the third group of Phase I participants. They will attend their kick-off dinner on December 1st.
GSU is in the planning stages for Phase II. A list of workshops was distributed to schools that have teachers in the AAM program and principals and superintendents are beginning to book dates. Further, AAM graduates who are still actively mentoring colleagues have requested support for workshops they are offering. It appears that graduates of the AAM program could cause an exponential growth of the program.
Governors State’s AAM program website is located at: http://aam.govst.edu/.
Loyola University
Loyola University Chicago has begun offering AAM workshops in selected city and suburban schools. Each of these workshops is currently foundational in nature, as the teachers learn basic concepts of instructional design, use of primary sources in teaching, and the meaningful incorporation of LOC resources in their teaching.
One school is the Amelia Earhart School, a Chicago public school that has no computer lab nor any way to concentrate the computers that they do have for AAM training. They were interested enough, however, to negotiate the use of computer lab space in another school about a mile away. Thus the teachers travel to the other school during an early dismissal staff development day. The teachers can then go back and use the single Internet-connected computer they have in each classroom.
Another school is the Kerkstra Elementary School, a public school in Oak Forest, IL. The program started the day before classes began in the fall and Kerkstra was opening for the first time as an elementary school. Construction was still under way and numerous computers had still not been unpacked, so participants had to "double up" on the equipment that was available. After two sessions, the participants have become reasonably adept at navigating LOC and are planning their first projects.
The third school is St. Hubert, a Catholic elementary school in Hoffman Estates, IL. The school's personnel are adept at making maximum use of minimal resources, but they had never been aware of the LOC resources. They are thoroughly enchanted with all they are discovering!
Loyola’s AAM website is located at: http://www.luc.edu/schools/education/aam/index.shtml.
Eastern Illinois University
EIU AAM will be completing workshop series with three schools during the month of November and beginning the series with new schools that will finish during spring 2005. Since beginning in the summer, EIU AAM has held workshops in six of the counties serviced by ROE #11 in East Central Illinois. As the program continues, EIU AAM staff will travel outside of the ROE to meet the needs of schools in the surrounding area.
Most recently, a series of workshops was completed with Marshall North Elementary School faculty in Marshall, IL. The students in this school are in grades three through six. Workshops exposed teachers to a nice mixture of LOC resources and technology skills.
Another recent series was presented to a group of teachers at Paris High School, in Paris, IL. Paris is a small East Central Illinois community that has recently gained national attention because it is the home of Illinois Army National Guard's 1544th Transportation Company. The unit – which draws most of its members from Paris and surrounding eastern Illinois towns – arrived in
EIU’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.eiu.edu/~eiuaam/.
Illinois State University
Last month, ISU’s AAM Director Richard Satchwell shared his excitement about the developing AAM program at Milner Library. The excitement meter continues on full tilt this month as he begins interviewing three very strong candidates for the position of Digital Preservationist. The candidates all possess teaching experience, adult training experience, and an interest in instructional technologies. Satchwell can’t wait to meet the candidates and select the best one to join his AAM journey.
The Digital Preservationist will play a role in the planning and visionary work for this program. His or her anticipated role will include assistance with workshop development and training, website creation (future URL: www.mlb.ilstu.edu/aam), as well as assisting with the digitization of local primary source materials.
The program will deliver a unique, standards-driven experience for media specialist/school librarians and teachers in Central Illinois. One of the major goals for Satchwell’s agenda is to establish a program that will change the daily habits of media specialist and teachers to ensure the regular use and integration of primary source materials, while facilitating the Illinois Learning Standards. The ISU AAM Web site should be up and running soon.
ISU’s AAM program website is located at:
http://www.aamprogram.org/introduction/aam_partners_detail.aspx?id=22.
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