The Pisgah Forest Institute (PFI) workshop titled "The Wonders of Weather" will be offered on the Brevard College campus on February 25-26. The primary instructors will be William Angel and Axel Grauman from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville. Both have taught in PFI's six-day Earth and Environmental Science course for K - 6 educators. Institute staff also will be involved in the instruction. In this course impacts of weather on the land and atmosphere will be discussed. Students will be shown how to access and interpret data from NCDC and other sources. The participants also will gain some insights as to how weather components such as wind have impacted history. They also will view some graphic effects of recent hurricane-induced floods on Kings Creek which runs through the college campus. Those interested in learning more about this offering and possibly enrolling can do so on the PFI website, www.brevard.edu/pfi.

The Institute is pleased to announce that an Internship has been awarded to Brevard College student David A. Funderburk. This upper classman will be engaged in a wide variety of activities involved in the preparation and delivery of courses. In addition David will be working with PFI Operations Coordinator Heather Cosby on a project of his design concerning the subject matter in the "Elements of Nature" workshop which will be offered again on July 10 -15.

On January 20, 2005 Dr. Barbara McDonald, USDA Forest Service researcher and editor of the informative USDAFS publication "Natural Inquirer", visited with PFI staff. The purpose of those discussions was to foster greater cooperation between those who compile that magazine for children and the Institute personnel. They also shared experiences and observations regarding how forest related information can be taught more effectively to educators and their students. 

The cooperation of Jim Giauque of the Blue Ridge Paper Products Inc. in providing information on the nature and extent of recycling that his company carries out in its Canton, NC mill is gratefully acknowledged. Mr. Giauque also has arranged a tour of his plant for the participants in PFI's "Air - Not: Effective Pollution Abatement" which will be offered on June 19-21, 2005. The students will get to view first hand how Blue Ridge Paper, through recycling, has significantly reduced the air pollution from its plant while saving money. Contact between PFI and Blue Ridge Paper was facilitated by PFI Advisory Board member Shannon Buckley.  

The PFI staff extends its best wishes for continued success to Operations Assistant Jessica Sharp who at the conclusion of the Fall ‘04 term graduated with honors from Brevard College. Jessica will be doing some extensive traveling across the United States prior to deciding her next career path. Whatever her choice, the remaining staff is confident that she will do well.   

Kudos to Alice Cohen Goldstein, Education Specialist and Workshops and Students As Scientists Coordinator at the Cradle of Forestry, on her re-election to the Board of Directors of the Environmental Educators of North Carolina, Inc. (EENC).  Alice, who has designed and taught PFI workshops, will be the Western Section Coordinator. She is planning several informative EENC activities in WNC this year including a family oriented outing and opportunity to earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs) on June 9-11 at the Blowing Rock Assembly Grounds. Anyone interested in further information should contact Alice at agoldstein@fs.fed.us.       

PFI’s website is located at www.brevard.edu/pfi.  

The brochure for KceeI’s summer 2005 courses was finalized by KceeI, Keystone’s marketing department, and an outside consultant last week. The brochures were mailed to teachers, administrative personnel, past attendees of KceeI, and various prospective participants. KceeI is receiving registrations from attendees continually and all the courses are at 40 percent capacity. The brochure may be viewed at KceeI’s website in a printable Adobe PDF form (http://www.kceei.keystone.edu/Workshops.htm).

Program Director Howard Jennings went before the Instructional Program Planning Council (IPPC) February 9^th, to seek approval for Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credit through the Northeast Education Intermediate Unit-19 (NEIU-19). He presented detailed course outlines and course content linkages to Pennsylvania Academic Standards for the Forest Stewardship, Watershed Concepts, and Geology courses. CPE courses are graduate level and must be approved by both the IPPC as well as the Pennsylvania Department of Education.  The IPPC is composed of approximately one representative, teacher, administration, or staff from each of the 20 districts in the local area. On February 10^th, KceeI received approval of the courses for the CPE credit. As of Friday, February 11^th, course participants will be able to choose from four credit options: Act 48 Hours (50 hours at no charge), CPE Credit (90 Act 48 Hours, and 3 CPE Credits at $75 per credit), Keystone College Undergraduate Credit (3 credits at $315 per credit), and Wilkes University Graduate Education Credit (3 credits at $321 per credit). These options should make the courses even more enticing to prospective participants.

On February 10^th, KceeI staff met with Bob Daniels, retired teacher; Donna Murphy, Center Coordinator, USDA Forest Service Mid-Atlantic Center for Urban and Community Forestry; and Jim Lacek, retired state forester to discuss the Forest Stewardship course in 2004. They reviewed the 2004 Forest Stewardship course, and made adjustments to the tentative schedule for 2005. The group also made suggestions for educational resources, and proposed new delivery techniques for some of the topics presented. A focus meeting has been scheduled with past presenters and consultants for the Watershed Concepts course, as well as the Geology of Northeastern Pennsylvania course.

KceeI is also in the process of forming an advisory committee. During its pilot year, KceeI served 25 teachers and anticipates serving approximately 100 teachers in 2005. The challenge as it grows is to maintain and enhance the quality of the education and experiences provided to educators during the first year from this environmental education institution. The advisory committee’s goals will be to help facilitate quality growth, suggest marketing strategies, help identify educational materials as well as community resources and to recommend potential new courses, workshops, and activities that are appropriate to the parameters of the grant.

KceeI’s website is located at www.kceei.keystone.edu.

Barat Education Foundation

The Barat AAM project continues to gain recognition and sponsorship in Northern Cook and Lake counties in Illinois. AAM staff are most excited to announce that teachers enrolled in the program and completing the professional development have decided to participate in the student projects, translating to over 1,200 students, ranging from kindergarten through grade 8, using LOC resources before the end of this school year.

The Barat AAM team is also currently recruiting the next group of American Memory Teacher Scholars who will work intensely to learn the LOC and technology, and then create new projects to involve their schools and students. It is hoped that this group will develop paper-based LOC projects that span multiple grade levels. Since project definition is created by the teachers who are participating in the Scholars program, it remains to be seen how things unfold.

Barat’s AAM program website is located at: www.americanmemory.org.

DePaul University

On January 28th, DePaul presented to 27 teachers and librarians from 13 schools at the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Best Practices Conference at Lane Tech College Prep High School. After the presentation, several teachers and librarians expressed an interest in having the workshop series at their schools and provided contact names. This is the fourth CPS conference where DePaul has introduced the AAM program.

Forty-nine teachers have completed at least 15 hours of AAM training. Two hundred and four teachers and librarians are in the process of completing the minimum 15 hours of AAM training.

DePaul will conduct its 16th video conference at Jamieson Elementary School on February 15^th.

DePaul’s AAM staff will participate in a panel discussion “Video Conferencing: Using an Old Dog to Teach New Tricks” at the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 2^nd. DePaul staff will participate via video conference from Chicago.

DePaul’s AAM program website is located at: http://aam.depaul.edu/.

Governors State University

January was another very busy month for the GSU team. This month began with the kick-off of the third group of Phase I school teachers. In previous groups, sessions were held on Saturdays only. This semester the course is meeting on a mix of Saturdays, weeknights, and online. The belief was that eight hours of training often left participants overwhelmed and totally drained and that was leading to wasting too much time on re-teaching. This delivery scheme will be evaluated at the end to determine if it is a better way of approaching the material.

Luci Sweder has been using both WebCT and Eluminate to enhance the class. Students have been given assignments, posted and discussed their project topics, and have met online for live discussions. Luci is using Eluminate for online office hours to help participants between sessions and for live discussion sessions.

The GSU team was buried in requests for Phase II workshops in January. GSU is focusing on providing workshops only to districts or schools that have Phase I alumni. The plan seems to be working.

One district sent their two middle schools to GSU for a full-day workshop, and the alumni wanted an active role in the workshop. It was a moment of pride to watch the four alumni talk so enthusiastically about AAM. During the day, a video conference was planned for the morning. The team finally got a taste of what can go wrong with video conferencing. Since the conference was scheduled onsite – rather than at a remote site – and everything had been tested, the level of confidence was very high. However, even when one thinks that all bases are covered, in comes a “hacker”. The good news was that the district was very understanding and wants to schedule another full-day workshop. Workshops were also provided off-site for three other school districts.

As research has consistently indicated, nothing in a school is successful or lasting if the school administrator does not demonstrate support. Therefore, it was gratifying that in all the workshops offered in January, the school principals had 100 percent attendance and even participated with their teachers. Further, these workshops had a total cost of rolls and coffee. Districts are always searching for meaningful training for their institute days and half-days. Not only did they turn to GSU-AAM to fill that need, and since the administrators were in attendance, they are now so interested in AAM that they are looking at follow-up workshops for their institute days for the remainder of this year and for next fall.

Luci and Sandi did a presentation for GSU university faculty on how to teach in a smart classroom. This was held in the new training classroom, the Senator Richard Durbin Adventure of the American Mind Academy. The presentation was well attended and so well received that Luci and Sandi have been asked to do an encore performance. Thanks go to Oran Mosteller for saying “hello” to GSU professors and for providing a demo to showcase the potential of video conferencing.

Last, the GSU team is working on selecting participants and dates for the first Phase III (faculty education) training. Zoomerang was a quick way to survey when university-level faculty could make themselves available for a block of 60 hours of training. It looks like it will be intense sessions during the two weeks before summer school.

Governors State’s AAM program website is located at: http://aam.govst.edu/.

Loyola University

On January 13, Senator Richard Durbin visited the AAM-Loyola program during a staff development program at St. Hubert's Elementary School in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. After visiting the program in the school's computer center, he attended a pizza luncheon with the school's junior high school aged students and addressed the group. He shared with them his enthusiasm for the AAM program and for the value of Library of Congress primary resources for student learning.

Loyola’s AAM website is located at:

http://www.luc.edu/schools/education/aam/index.shtml. 

Eastern Illinois University

Eastern Illinois University AAM continues to grow and evolve to meet the needs of area educators and students. Twenty-three schools have completed the workshop series, three are in the midst of a series, and three schools have scheduled workshops to begin soon. A presentation at the Carl Sandburg Elementary School Family Reading Night is planned for parents, as well as several upcoming presentations at state and national conferences.

The most recent group of teachers to complete the workshops is from Arthur, Illinois. Arthur is a small community of 2,200 people located northwest of Charleston. Arthur's surrounding Amish settlement, established in 1865 by a handful of families, has grown to over 3,000 members. The Amish work rich farmland of the area with teams of six to eight horse hitches, and the horse-drawn, black buggies are a common sight around Arthur. Many of the students within the school district are Amish.

EIU AAM is encouraging East Central Illinois teachers to learn more about the valuable resource in Springfield that is preparing to open in April, namely the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. The community of Springfield is planning several days of events to celebrate. EIU AAM Project Director Cindy Rich has been collaborating with the ALPLM Department of Education to prepare resources for teachers. For a look at this fabulous museum and its exhibits visit http://www.alplm.org.

EIU’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.eiu.edu/~eiuaam/.

Illinois State University

One of the most beneficial activities Richard Satchwell has initiated since starting as AAM Director at ISU is to form an advisory team to oversee his program. The ISU-AAM Advisory Team held its first meeting on February 4. The meeting went very well, and the discussion resulted in suggestions that will take that program to the next level.

Satchwell believes there is no better way to get a new program organized then to set an advisory team meeting. A meeting of this type forces one to think deeply, and to organize and communicate thoughts about a complex program such as AAM. In doing so, Satchwell and ISU’s Digital Preservationist Judy Bee were able to develop a streamlined workshop matrix that will take participants through a process that uses primary resources from the LOC. The matrix contains four six-hour workshops designed to introduce the LOC and guide teachers and media specialists through the process of creating lesson and unit plans focused on Illinois State Learning Standards. The first workshop of this series will be offered this spring. All four workshops will be combined and offered this summer during a four-day institute.

Being housed in an academic library offers the ISU-AAM partnership an opportunity to develop unique connections between the LOC resources and school media specialists. A summer institute specifically designed for school media specialists will be offered this summer. The advisory team suggested that Satchwell and Bee conduct a focus group session to help determine the agenda for this summer experience. Satchwell looks forward to sharing the outcomes of the focus group session with other partners interested in reaching media specialists within their territories.

The ISU-AAM website is now live. Visit this site at: http://www.mlb.ilstu.edu/aam.

Southern Illinois University-Carbondale

SIU-C AAM began delivering workshops in southern Illinois in January 2005 at Carbondale High School. Seventeen teachers were in attendance at the workshops. Five sessions have been scheduled so far, with topics ranging from Intro to Library of Congress, Intro to American Memory, Searching, Primary Sources, and working with digital images in PowerPoint. Three additional schools/districts are in the queue for this spring.

AAM staff have begun planning for delivery of EDUC 550: An Adventure of the American Mind, a three-hour graduate level course, for the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) cohort. The class meets in the summer semester. This will be the third MAT cohort to receive the course. The course syllabus is currently being reviewed, and course materials are being developed.

SIU-C’s AAM program website is located at: http://aam.siu.edu/.

Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville

The SIU-E AAM team continues to offer technical support to Phase I teachers and acts as a continual resource in utilizing LOC material. Meetings with various departments within the School Of Education are being held to plan for the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree program to begin in July 2005. The AAM graduate course will be a degree requirement. The AAM team will also be offering technical support and electronic portfolio guidance throughout the MAT degree program.

The SIU-E AAM team began the new year by holding a workshop for K-12 teachers at Teutopolis, Illinois.  There were a total of nine participants who completed the basic series of 12 hours. The teachers who participated taught social studies, history, and civics.  There was also one librarian and one media specialist present.  A popular topic of interest was government.  The teachers used THOMAS, American Memory, and the National Archives Web page.  Another interesting topic was a comparison between Japanese relocation camps and Jewish concentration camps.  Resources used were from the "Suffering Under a Great Injustice”, Ansel Adam's photographs of Japanese-Americans at Manzanar, and the Auschwitz Museum, http://www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl.  Lessons will soon be available on SIU-E AAM website.

A workshop series is currently being held in Greenville, Illinois at the Bond County Community Unit 2 High School. There are approximately ten teachers participating in the basic series of 12 hours. In order to increase participation from area schools, the incentive amount has been increased. All workshop forms and details can be found at the SIU-EAAM website under “Workshops.”

SIU-E’s AAM program website is located at: http://www.siue.edu/education/aam.

Metropolitan State College of Denver

An Adventure of the American Mind – Colorado now has approximately 50 in-service teachers enrolled in its Blended Learning and Saturday workshop series.  The teachers in the Blended Learning courses are from schools in the Archdiocese of Denver, Cherry Creek School District, Jeffco (Jefferson County) School District, and Denver Public Schools.  A few teachers drive all the way from Colorado Springs for the Saturday courses.

On March 4, AAM-CO will host a Librarian Day with the Auraria Library.  Registrations for the event flooded the AAM-CO office on the day that the event was announced – the initial 44-person session was completely filled by noon.  After opening a second session for that day, 95 librarians and educators from all over Colorado (including some from the Western Slope) now have the opportunity to attend this exciting event.  Presentations from the Denver Public Library, the Auraria Library, the Colorado Digitization Project, and a teleconference with Dr. Derrick de Kerckhove from the LOC will comprise an informative day.

AAM-CO will host its Open House on March 4^th and 5^th.  Colorado superintendents, educators, education specialists, and others will partake in a breakfast with the Librarian Day participants on March 4^th and then break off for a tour of the AAM-CO facilities and Metro campus with Peggy O’Neill-Jones.  On March 5^th, the AAM-CO office will be open to visitors and conclude with a drawing for free equipment in the afternoon.

MSCD’s AAM program website is located at: http://aamcolorado.mscd.edu.

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