In addition to Executive Director Dr. Jennifer Frick-Ruppert, two new staff members have joined PFI. The Operations Manager is Kevin Fischer. Kevin comes to us from the Illinois school system, where he taught high school biology, earth science, and environmental science. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Biology from the College of Charleston and a Master of Arts in Teaching Biological Sciences from National-Louis University. The Operations Curriculum Coordinator is Ryan McCormack. Ryan has been teaching both math and science courses at East McDowell Junior High School. He received a BS in Biology from The Citadel and a Master of Arts in Teaching Secondary Sciences from SUNY Cortland. Both Kevin and Ryan were active in designing curriculum for their school systems and providing creative opportunities for their students. The strong teaching credentials of Kevin and Ryan will contribute greatly to the effectiveness of PFI’s workshops to “teach the teachers.”

Both Ryan and Kevin have additional skills in their background that will also contribute to PFI’s continued success. Ryan, for example, has worked as a research assistant at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University as well as the Westvaco Corporation’s Forest Science Laboratory in Summerville, SC. He received several grants to support the use of technology in the classroom. Kevin has taught in the Summer Science Camp for his school district and served as an Environmental Education Docent at the Fairfield Osborn Preserve in California. He also served as General Manager for a premier restaurant in Boise, Idaho. Kevin started a Birding Club at his school in order to get his students outside in nature, recognizing that the best way to encourage appreciation for the natural world is to experience it--a similar objective of PFI.

We welcome both Kevin and Ryan to PFI and look forward to their contributions. Their first day for PFI was the first day of the first summer workshop. They were immediately put to work in helping to implement the workshop and in observing the excellent product already in place. They will be teaching in the remaining summer workshops, lending their expertise to improve the quality of instruction our workshop participants receive.

PFI’s first two summer workshops have been completed. “Earth and Environmental Science for Elementary School Teachers,” and “Sustainability: Teaching for Tomorrow!” were enthusiastically received by the approximately 40 educators who took part in them. Tours of various local forests and facilities formed important components of these workshops. We thank representatives from Cradle of Forestry in America, Pisgah National Forest, Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education, Holmes Educational State Forest, DuPont State Forest, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, Brevard Water Treatment, Vulcan Material’s Penrose Quarry, Progress Energy’s Asheville Plant, Blue Ridge Paper Plant, the North Carolina Arboretum, and the NC Cooperative Extension. Topics of the remaining four workshops include medicinal, poisonous, and invasive plant species of Western North Carolina, recycling and composting in the classroom, Elements of Nature, and Earth and Environmental Science for Middle and High School Teachers. A few slots are still open in some of these workshops, but others are full. To register or receive information on the workshops, visit the PFI website.

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

The Watershed Explorers course concluded on Friday, June 23. From comments received in the evaluations, the course proved to be a great success. After the opening evening banquet and keynote address from Greg Matkosky on Sunday evening, the participants arrived bright and early Monday morning eager to see what the course had in store for them. Howard Jennings, Director of KceeI, began with a discussion of the book, Every Drop for Sale, Jeffrey Rothfeder, which deals with global water issues and problems. This book was provided to all attendees. Next, Angela Lambert, DCNR Environmental Education Coordinator, did an activity with the teachers related to the water cycle, it was interactive and hands-on and the teachers loved it. Keeping with the theme of the water cycle, a brief video was shown on the hydrologic cycle. It was followed by a presentation on well-water by Tim Eichner, Director of the Water Resource Center. Howard Jennings followed with Hom*A*Syst, an environmental risk-assessment guide for the home and a discussion on bottled water.

After lunch, Mike Chisdock, coordinator of the West Nile Virus Program for Lackawanna County, spoke to the group about the virus and brought in live specimens to teach about mosquitoes. Angela Lambert and Tim Eichner finished up the rest of the afternoon with various Project-Wet activities that teachers can use in their own classrooms. Some of the topics covered were: watershed delineation and point and non-point source pollution.

Dr. Robert Cook, Keystone College professor, started Tuesday morning off with an introduction to groundwater and measuring flow. Dr. Cook took the group outside and in the stream for most of his presentation. After lunch, the group was divided in two and concurrent sessions were held. Angela Lambert conducted one session in the stream on collecting and identifying macroinvertebrates while Dr. Jerry Skinner, Keystone College professor, took the other group further upstream to demonstrate fish sampling techniques. The groups switched after each session. Next on the agenda was a riparian trail hike on Keystone’s interpretive trails with Donna Murphy, USDA Forest Service. But before the hike, Donna had a surprise for the group…Smokey Bear, dressed in full costume dropped in for a visit and the teachers loved him.

Wednesday was dedicated to an all-day watershed tour. The first stop was at Keystone College’s water treatment facility. Dan Walters, maintenance staff at the college, explained the facility and the processes that are involved. The group then departed for Little Rocky Glen, a pristine geologic area owned by Countryside Conservancy, a local land trust. Here, Mary Felly, Executive Director of Countryside Conservancy, talked about the history of the property and its acquisition. Then Dr. Robert Cook explained about the geology of the area and participants were able to explore a little before departing.

The next stop was Lazy Brook Park, once an area occupied by many homes and now a public park. Paul Weilage, Wyoming County Planning Commission, explained how this area flooded so often that FEMA had to assist in relocating the homes to different areas because they should never have been built there in the first place. After this, the group traveled to the Environmental Learning Center at Lackawanna State Park where they ate lunch and Angela Lambert spoke briefly about the resources for teachers that are available here.

Glenburn Pond was the next stop on the watershed tour. Bob Lewis, PA DEP, explained about the issues associated with this pond such as, flooding, safety, and chromium contamination. He also explained about the current controversies over the breeching of the unsafe Glenburn Dam. Next stop was at a site in Scranton near the Lackawanna River. Here, landscape architect Tom McLane shared plans for a revitalization and trail development project along the Lackawanna River. For the last stop of the day, Ernie Keller of the Lackawanna County Conservation District showed the group a modern day conservation farm, the highlight of which was a manure containment facility that reduces non-point source pollution.

Early Thursday morning the group left for Lake Manataka, Keystone’s own biological field station. Tim Eichner, demonstrated water sampling with one group while and Dr. Jerry Skinner spoke about lake and pond ecology to another. Once back to Keystone College, an information session was held on Lake Manataka phytoplankton. The rest of the day was spent on watershed microscopy-looking at plankton and zooplankton from Lake Manataka. After dinner, a WebQuest session was held for those who obtained CPE credit through the NEIU-19. It was a long evening but their projects came out great.

On Friday, Howard Jennings, facilitated a discussion of the activities that had taken place so far in the course. The feedback was excellent, especially related to the watershed tour. Lindsay Barrett George was the next presenter of the day. She is the author-illustrator of a number of children’s books including, The Secret; Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse; Box Turtle at Long Pond; My Bunny and Me and many others. She spoke about her books and had the group make a book of their own. This was followed by a presentation from two 2005 Watershed Concepts attendees, Marilyn Heller and Zita Fisk. They shared the different ways they have been integrating watershed concepts into their classrooms. After Lunch Ed Zygmunt, Chesapeake Bay Technician from the Wyoming County Conservation District spoke to the group about the Chesapeake Bay and the current issues surrounding it. After a brief explanation of the Tunkhannock Creek Watershed Atlas on the web, Tim Eichner hosted a “Watershed Jeopardy” game that was a big hit. The winning team walked away with Keystone College pure maple syrup. After wrap-up and evaluations, the course ended at approximately 3:30 on Friday afternoon.

The success of this course is probably best appreciated through some of the comments included in the evaluations:

“This course was incredible! It should be required for everyone who cares about our future.”

“Get ready for the watershed experience of your life.”

“The KceeI experience was the best and most intense course that I have taken. It was a wealth of information and resources.”

“A very eye opening experience. I learned more than I ever thought I could in one week. I enjoyed every minute of it.”

“This was the best experience I have had related to education.”

“All of my undergrad courses should have been like this – engaging, interactive and hands-on. I will definitely recommend it to others!”

“Time was very well spent and knowledge was earned.”

On a final note, the timing of this course could not have been better. During the following week, Northeast Pennsylvania, along with many other communities, received a record-breaking amount of rainfall. Flooding occurred that this area has not seen in more than 35 years. Many towns still remain submerged days after the rain has ended. The concepts that the teachers learned from Watershed Explorers will hopefully help them identify and understand the scope of the problems that are associated with this flooding.

Just a reminder…

• To view the continuous water quality monitoring sites , click on the following link: http://www.waterontheweb.org/data/index.html
• If you would like to view the Northeast, check out the live “Streaming Camera” at www.atlas.keystone.edu/video.htm
• KceeI’s brochure may be viewed at its website in a printable Adobe PDF form at http://www.kceei.keystone.edu/Documents/2006/brochure.pdf

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

Pacific Forest Institute

Pacific Forest Institute has scheduled two, one-week sessions in two different locations for teachers to learn more about the use and care of our natural resources and how to convey that to K-12 students.

Both sessions will begin on the William Jessup University (WJU) Campus located in Rocklin, CA near Sacramento. The first session, July 16-21 will move from WJU to Hidden Lakes on Tuesday, July 18.

This year, we have purposely chosen two different type camp locations in the Tahoe National Forest. The first, Hidden Lakes is located in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range at 6400 ft. elevation. The camp is rustic, over-looking Hidden Lake with great views of the high, granite country. Lodging is in platform tents and one large facility for meals and meetings.

The second session (Camp Ross Relles), July 23-28 is located at a lower elevation (approximately 3200 ft) and will be warmer and probably hot, during the day. The cabins are rustic, but the camp amenities include a swimming pool, baseball field and volleyball court. There is a large dining room that will also be used for in-door meeting rooms, if needed.

The 2006 curriculum will be the same for both sessions and include the following:

Metroville Land Scramble, Overview of California Forests, The Greatest Good: F.S. Centennial Film, Project Water and Aquatic classes, Project Learning Tree activities, Talk About Trees training, visit to the Gap Fire with over-view by the Tahoe National Forest Supervisor, visit a logging operation and orientation by Sierra-Pacific Industries, Inc., Silviculture classes with emphasis on tree identification and practical forestry by Sierra College, Wildlife classes by Sierra Pacific Industries wildlife biologist, Points of view of an Environmental group (Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign), Fire class by California Dept. of Forestry, Ecosystem study (California State University of Sacramento), Tour of an SPI sawmill and the development of school curriculum around all if these issues.

There will be time for fun and entertainment each evening. From all of this, it is our anticipation that results will be similar to those from our 2005 Plumas National Forest location---teachers will have a better background from which to teach K-12 about the importance of our natural resources and the cooperative efforts between the forest products industry and the various local, state and federal government agencies.

For updated information on the Pacific Forest Institute, please visit our website at:

http://www.jessup.edu/academics/pacificforestinstitute.

ERC Broadband’s website is located at: www.ercbroadband.org.

Western North Carolina

The four Western North Carolina AAM partners (Brevard College, Mars Hill College, Montreat College, and Western Carolina University) and AAM’s Online Education office are collaborating on several initiatives to continue serving educators in the region over the coming 15 months.

PROPEL Workshop Series

Development of the PROPEL workshop series for school librarians and media specialists continues. Registrations are steadily coming in to the new AAM Learning Community site at www.aamlearning.org. Already two additional sessions have been added. The first PROPEL workshop will begin at Brevard College on July 26.

Western Carolina University AAM staff are putting together the student workbook for the PROPEL workshops. The first of these workbooks is being completed this week and sent to other PROPEL instructors for proofing. Additionally, the pre- and post-assessments for PROPEL are being developed by Pam Johnson and Beth Coulter. These will serve as a foundation for the series evaluation.

PROPEL is “Primary Resources Opening Portals to Enhance Learning.” Workshop instructors have also used the acronym to name the six workshop sessions, described below:

1. Preview:  Where are we going? Lots of places! This first workshop maps the way to using primary sources, collaborating with teachers, and connecting with other librarians.

2. Responsibility:  It’s a fine line to balance the rights of the author/creator with the needs of the educational community.  This session gives you, as the copyright expert, tools to help you meet the challenges you face every day.

3. Optimize:  You can match the right resource with the right opportunity at the right time.  Increase your effectiveness in helping others locate primary sources.

4. Prototype: An original design that’s all about style – with substance! Connect teaching styles and learning styles with primary sources. Create innovative resources (and other cool stuff) to use in your school.

5. Empower: Discover the path to using primary sources in your school. Build on your previous experiences to create practical, hands-on resources and harness these to enrich learning experiences.

6. Launch: PROPEL your teaching and learning community to higher order thinking through primary sources. Being a catalyst for change, unite your community to become lifelong learners.

More information about PROPEL is available at www.aamprogram.org and at www.aamlearning.org.

Brevard College

During the month of June, Brevard AAM began the summer workshop series “Teaching with Primary Sources: Digital Storytelling Level II.” Two counties were represented during this workshop, Polk and Transylvania. This first series of participants really set a standard for the rest of the summer because of the excellent stories they produced. The oral histories that each group captured are a treasure for the community.

Topics such as “The History of the Transylvania County Library” and “The Brevard Music Center” were created in a documentary-style digital story format. The projects allowed the participants to gather local and national primary sources, conduct an oral history interview, and create a final product from the raw, unedited data. The project “The History of the Transylvania County Library” captured the true spirit of Digital Storytelling Level II. The participants researched the topic by locating past newspaper articles. Further, employees of the Transylvania County Library assisted them in scanning and preserving photographs of past images of the library and librarians. The real treasure was the oral history interview conducted with a retired employee of the library. This employee drove the bookmobile for many years and was able to relay many narratives about her experiences. Absolutely an outstanding use of primary sources!

Brevard’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://www.brevard.edu/aam/.

Mars Hill College

This summer is getting off to a busy start with Digital Storytelling teacher institutes and development of the PROPEL program.

During the week of May 24, the Mars Hill AAM team traveled to Fayetteville Technical Community College (North Carolina) to teach a Digital Storytelling workshop to area teachers. Because schools in the region were taking end-of-grade tests that week, the class consisted of eight media coordinators, two art teachers, and four members of the Fayetteville Tech faculty and staff. Dr. Ed Shearin, Elizabeth Lang, and AnneMarie Walter shared their exciting strategies for using digital cameras and the digital resources of the Library of Congress to enrich the curriculum with story telling.

The teachers created some wonderful stories: The Obscure Presidents, An Introduction to Dance, and a digital story that uses William Gottlieb’s amazing photographs to introduce students to jazz.

Back at Mars Hill, the first of two Digital Storytelling Level II workshops have taken place. Middle school language arts teachers Kim Carpenter and Krista Langlois used audio recordings and photographs from the LOC collection, Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia, with their own video and still photos to create a short documentary about Appalachian oral traditions.

At Fairview Elementary, 14 teachers developed stories to use in their classroom with subjects ranging from the seasons to long division to Kindergarten success.

Mars Hill’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://www.mhc.edu/aamind/.

Western Carolina University

Western Carolina University's AAM partnership completed all scheduled Phase II workshops in June. It was a busy month as we taught 7 1/2 hour days for 18 of the 20 week days.

Amy Wilkinson (SIU-E), Pam Johnson (Online Education), and Beth Coulter (WCU) will be presenting at the National Educational Computing Conference this week in San Diego. The PowerPoint presentation for the conference will be available next week for those wishing to see it. Information about its online availability is forthcoming. Beth Coulter will also be assisting Anne Savage (LOC) in a "Birds of a Feather" session at the conference.

WCU’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://aam.wcu.edu.

Waynesburg College

WC AAM continues to work with local private schools in the service area. Central Christian Academy (CCA) held “Mining Memories,” the second of the basic training sessions offered. All CCA teachers participated and many expressed ideas about incorporating the LOC primary sources they discovered into existing lessons. CCA teachers will complete basic training with “Digging Deeper and “Mapping Memories” on August 21 and will continue with “Visual Literacy” and “My Day in History” workshops on August 22. The enthusiastic participation of these teachers and their willingness to learn the new skills it takes to incorporate digitized primary sources into their classrooms is evident. CCA educators and staff plan to utilize the incentive program to update the school’s technology equipment. These teachers plan to incorporate the new skills and lessons they are developing using LOC primary sources across the curriculum.

Kathy Heidler, a CCA elementary teacher, participated in the WC AAM “Summer Institute: WebQuesting at the Library of Congress.” Conducted June 13-20, this 30-hour workshop was an intense study of what WebQuesting is and how it can be used in a variety of ways, allowing students to “dig deep” into digitized primary sources offered by LOC. Ann Canning, former Assistant Director of WC AAM, developed many of the materials and co-led the workshop with Sue Wise, current Assistant Director. By way of introduction, participants first took part in a WebQuest themselves, developed by Dr. Canning entitled “WebQuesting at the LOC.” Each participant then seized the opportunity and developed an excellent WebQuest that will be incorporated into an existing lesson and aligned with local curriculum and Pennsylvania Academic Standards. Completed WebQuests can be viewed at: http://aam.waynesburg.edu/webquests/. Due to this success, WC AAM plans to repeat this workshop in the fall.

On May 26, WC AAM conducted training for Jefferson-Morgan School District teachers. “Visual Literacy” and “My Day in History” workshops were held, with 20 teachers participating. The positive feedback from workshop evaluations indicates that the new skills and resources will be easily integrated into their classroom curriculum.

In addition, two Jefferson-Morgan teachers are taking advantage of WC AAM’s Resource CD services. These teachers requested that LOC primary sources be collected on the topics of the Great Depression and American presidents and saved on a CD. One of them will also be utilizing the WWI Resource CD that has already been completed. Teachers participating in WC AAM workshops are encouraged to make requests for Resource CDs, as the staff understands the limited time classroom educators have available for this type of research. The goal of the project is to make LOC digitized primary sources as readily available to classroom teachers as possible.

Dave White, a graphic arts teacher at Jefferson-Morgan High School, completed “The Illustrated Day of Infamy” project with his Graphic Arts II class. This project is now posted on the WC media server and can be viewed at: http://aam.waynesburg.edu/teacher_projects/DaveWhitePPT2.ppt.

Waynesburg’s AAM program Web site is located at: http://aam.waynesburg.edu.