PFI’s sixth and final summer workshop, Earth
and Environmental Science for Middle and High School Teachers, has just
concluded. The 6 days of the workshop included an evening session on making and
using topographical maps and compasses, a day on geology, a day on forest
ecology, a morning session on water quality/stream ecology, an evening session
on astronomy, a day on forest management and health, and a day on integrating
environmental issues. Each morning began with a discussion/brain-storming session
led by a PFI staff member, but during which participants were encouraged to share
ideas on how they could adapt activities to their own classrooms.
In addition
to utilizing Pisgah National Forest, course participants toured Vulcan
Material’s Penrose Quarry to view the Henderson Gneiss that is mined there, DuPont State Forest and its magnificent waterfalls, Holmes Educational State Forest with its impressive diversity of
plant species in a classic Appalachian Cove Forest, and the Cradle of
Forestry’s Forest Discovery Center. Participants also toured the
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, the North Carolina Arboretum, and the
Bent Creek Research and Demonstration Forest. Facilities and housing were
provided by Brevard College.
Executive
Director Dr. Jennifer Frick-Ruppert taught forest ecology and assisted Diane
Silver, Director of the Mud Creek Project, in stream ecology. District Ranger
Randy Burgess provided an overview of the USDA Forest Service, its history, and
current issues. USDA Forest Service employee Mr. Bill Jackson used a computer
simulation to teach air quality. Julia Murphy of the Bent Creek Experimental Forest led a tour of the Forest and discussed its function. Cradle
of Forestry’s Cindy Carpenter taught activities on the day of integrated
issues. Local educator Mr. Dick Hilliard provided geology expertise. Drs. Mike
Castalez and Mel Blake of the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute led a tour
of their facility and taught the astronomy segment. We thank all these experts
that assisted in educating our workshop participants.
Acting
Operations Coordinator Jessica Sharp’s last day with PFI was July 24. Jessica has worked for
4 years in various roles and was a repository of information about PFI. She worked closely with former PFI staff members Bob Sweeney and
Heather Cosby as well as with the current staff to create and implement several
of the workshops. Her particular expertise was applied to the workshop What Goes Around Comes Around: The Art and
Science of Recycling and Composting in the Classroom. She is going to
graduate school at Purdue University, where she will work as a fully
funded research assistant in the area of biofuels. She will be missed, but we
wish her the best of luck in graduate school and beyond.
PFI's website
is located at www.brevard.edu/pfi.
Forests and Society, another successful KceeI course, concluded
on Friday, July 21st. As
mentioned in the previous newsletter, Jim Nelson, a retired state forester of
42 ˝ years, presented the keynote address on the History of Pennsylvania’s
Forests for the third time. Jim’s
account of the Pennsylvania Forest History was excellent as always and KceeI
was pleased to welcome him again in 2006.
Monday began with an early breakfast at the Water Resource Center.
Howard Jennings, Director of KceeI, started the morning off with a
discussion on secondary growth and clear-cutting. Following this, Jim Lacek, a retired forester, with the help
of Tim Eichner, Director of the Water Resource Center, conducted two different lessons
with the teachers that could be easily used in their classrooms: “Goods from
the Woods” and “What’s a Forest to You?” The
teachers spent the rest of the morning in the field learning about tree
identification. After lunch Jim Lacek, Tim Eichner, and Dr. Robert Hansen, a forester with the Penn
State Cooperative Extension, spent the afternoon teaching and conducting
woodland inventory in Keystone College’s own woodlands campus. Dr. Hansen finished up the day with a
discussion on silviculture.
On Tuesday
morning, Dr. David Reese from the NEIU-19 spoke to the group for a brief period
of time regarding the WebQuest session that is required for those who are
obtaining CPE credit through the NEIU. Rich Gulyas of the Bradford County
Conservation District was the next presenter.
He took the group out in the field to discuss ecosystem management, vernal
pools and soils. At 9:30am transportation was provided to
Woodbourne Wildlife Sanctuary. Here, Dr.
Jerry Skinner, Keystone College professor, talked to the group
about forest ecology then Bob Daniels, a retired teacher, gave a presentation
on birds in the forested landscape.
After Lunch, the group traveled to Deer Park Lumber for a sawmill tour
guided by Steve Fox, Sales Manager for Deer Park Lumber. Jim Kessler, DCNR forester, followed the tour
with a discussion on timber harvesting and showed the group a recently timbered
plot of land.
After a
quick breakfast on Wednesday morning, the group left for Grey Towers National
Historic Site. Located in the northeast
corner of Pennsylvania on the outskirts of Milford, Grey Towers is the
ancestral home of Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the US Forest Service and
twice Governor of Pennsylvania. Here the
group was met by Daniel Banks from the United States Forest Service. Daniel gave a guided tour of the beautiful
home while relating the history of the Pinchot family. Following the tour, he gave a presentation on
the history of conservation, the history and philosophy of the Forest Service
and on the current issues and challenges.
After lunch
in one of Grey Towers’ historic conference rooms, Bill Halainen, Management
Assistant with the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, presented an
interesting contrast on the philosophy of the Park Service and offered a
daunting depiction of the current challenges facing them. Next, Kathleen Sandt, Environmental Education
Specialist, presented the history of the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area and
showed a short DVD on the topic.
Finally, the group left Grey Towers and traveled to a woolly adelgid
infestation site at Raymondskill Falls within the Delaware Water Gap
National Recreation Area. Here, Rich Evans, an ecologist with the Park
Service, spoke about the detrimental effects that this insect pest is having on
Pennsylvania’s state tree, the eastern
hemlock.
Threats to
the forest ecosystem was the topic of Thursday morning. Donna Murphy, Coordinator of the USDA Forest Service Mid-Atlantic Center for Urban and Community Forestry at
Keystone College, started off the day with a very
informative presentation on exotic and invasive plant species. The next presenter was Tom Hardisky, a
wildlife biologist with the PA Game Commission, who spoke about the impacts of
white tailed deer in Pennsylvania.
Continuing with exotic species, Bill Oldland, an entomologist from the
USDA Forest Service, spoke to the group about threatening forest pests. After lunch, Dr Jerry Skinner began the
afternoon with wildlife habitats and mammals of Pennsylvania followed by stream ecology and
quality. Donna Murphy finished off the day with a
discussion on riparian buffers and a hike on Keystone’s interpretive
trails.
Vinnie
Cotrone, Urban Forester with the Penn State Cooperative Extension, began Friday
morning with a presentation on urban forestry.
Forest fragmentation was the next topic
covered by Bob Hobbes, a forester with Hobbes Forestry Services. Next, Laura Charles, a teacher who attended
the 2005 Forest Stewardship course, related to the group how she has integrated
forest stewardship teachings into her classroom. A one-time student of Professor Howard
Jennings and now a forester, Bill Nasser was the next presenter. Bill presented a discussion on fire
ecology. After Lunch, Tim Eichner
conducted a game of Forests and Society Jeopardy as a means of wrapping up the
topics covered during the week. After
the post-tests and evaluations were complete, so was the 2006 Forests and
Society Course.
The success
of this course is probably best appreciated through some of the comments
included in the evaluations:
“This course has, by far, given me
the most useable information for the classroom in all my 13 years of teaching
and taking courses.”
“I wish I had the opportunity to
take a course like this 25 years ago.”
“I have never taken a graduate
course where the passion of the speakers spoke more about the topics than the
material they were presenting.”
“I traveled over three hours to get
here and I was rewarded for every mile – great program, instructors, field
trips, and teaching materials.”
“This course was intensive learning
with great fun.”
“KceeI courses offer a wealth of
knowledge in a highly professional manner.
The presentations, hands-on experience and resource materials are
invaluable!”
“This course was on of the best
organized courses I have ever taken. Not
only well organized, but the amount of information presented to us was
phenomenal.”
“The
knowledge, experience, and personality of the instructors made this course a
huge learning success. Thank you.”
Registration
for this course was full at 25 teachers.
13 of whom obtained CPE credit through the NEIU-19, 5 obtained Wilkes University
Graduate Education Credit, and 7 received Act 48 Hours. There was a percent change of 66% in average
test scores.
Just a
reminder…
KceeI’s
website is located at www.KceeI.keystone.edu.
Pacific Forest Institute
For updated
information on the Pacific Forest Institute, please visit our website at:
http://www.jessup.edu/academics/pacificforestinstitute.
For updated
information on ERC Broadband, please visit the website at: www.ercbroadband.org.
Western
North Carolina
PROPEL
The PROPEL workshop series for Western
North Carolina school librarians and media
coordinators has begun! PROPEL, which
stands for “Primary Resources Opening Portals to Enhance Learning,” also
conveniently spells out each of the six workshops. So the first workshop, Preview, made
its début on July 26th at Brevard
College. Preview will be followed by Responsibility
(focusing on copyright), Optimize (identifying effective primary sources
for inquiry-based learning), Prototype (connecting teaching and
learning), Empower (creating effective resources), and Launch
(preparing for mentoring teachers and changing the learning community). Together, the workshop series comprises 30
hours of instruction.
Preview is the introductory workshop of PROPEL that
introduces school librarians to the goals and expectations of the program
and begins the process of identifying local, state, national, and international
primary sources; developing collaborative relationships with K-12 teachers;
using the Library of Congress website; connecting LOC primary sources to
classroom curriculum; understanding adult learning styles; and understanding copyright
laws as they pertain to primary sources.
Preview is team-taught by all of the WNC
AAM
directors: Beth Coulter,
Wendy Fusco, Jodi Huggins, Pam Johnson,
and Ed Shearin. Preview will be offered at Wilkes
County,
Montreat
College,
and Mars
Hill
College
during the month of August.
Research Project
Western Carolina University (WCU) AAM
director Beth Coulter
is working with AAM
Online Program Director Pam Johnson
to coordinate the research for PROPEL and the North Carolina AAM
program from1999 to 2007. An instrument for pre-assessment of PROPEL
participants has been completed and is online. The instrument will be modified,
as needed, for use in the NC-AAM
program research.
Phase II Workshop Matrix
A matrix of all materials developed and used by North
Carolina and South Carolina AAM
partners is also being coordinated through the WCU AAM
office. The matrix will be divided into categories with matching materials
online as well as student products that result from teacher implementation of
various methods.
More information about PROPEL is available at www.aamprogram.org and at www.aamlearning.org.
Mars Hill College
At Mars
Hill
College
a number of summer institutes have been completed as teachers created exciting
digital stories to use in their classroom.
At Fairview Elementary, 16 teachers came in during their
summer vacation to attend the Level I workshop series. The teachers created stories that introduce
science concepts such as sound and vibration and a sweet first grade story
about the seasons. Other teachers took
advantage of using a new technology to create their welcome message for
students and parents.
On campus, a mix of elementary, middle, and high school
teachers developed stories to teach in regular and special education
classrooms. Teachers will use American Memory resources to teach about
families, using money wisely, the 50 states, and how Jackie Robinson broke the
color barrier.
In Digital Storytelling II the teachers used video to tell
classroom stories that teach about careers, responsibility, and what makes us
different. Special education teachers
Christy Hicks and Elena Ricardo Oian interviewed a
young man who spoke very eloquently about dyslexia, his own learning
disability. They hope to use this as a
classroom example as each student tells his or her own story and create a more
positive learning community among their BEH students.
Mars Hill’s AAM
program Web site is located at: http://www.mhc.edu/aamind/.
Montreat College
During the last two weeks of June, the Montreat Partner
hosted Advanced-level Digital Storytelling Summer Institutes with a combined
attendance of 21 teachers. Over the two-week period teachers blended national
primary sources with local photographs to create stories about the western
North Carolina Fair; the rich history of downtown Asheville; the history and
evolution of downtown Weaverville and it’s library; and the establishment of
Biltmore Village - just to name a few of the wonderful projects. The teachers
interviewed locals and blended the interviews with their own narrations to
create soundtracks for their stories. Many incorporated folk music from the
American Memory collections to enrich their stories with a taste of audible
culture.
Montreat will host its last Advanced-level Digital
Storytelling Institute of the summer during the week of July 24th. The staff anticipates an exciting week of
more creativity and energy.
Montreat’s
AAM
program Web site is located at: http://aam.montreat.edu/.
Northern
Virginia Schools Partnership
This summer the Northern Virginia Partnership will be
sharing resources at several state and international professional development
programs for educators. AAMNVA
staff will offer several presentations at University
of Virginia’s
Diversity Institute and at Fairfax County Public Schools, Summer of Learning in
July. Rhonda Clevenson will be teaching a
mini-course, Think Your Way through Primary Source Puzzles at Harvard Graduate
School of Education’s Project Zero Institute. In addition to conference
presentations, AAMNVA
facilitated the first “Ambassador for Learning” program. Ambassadors are educators
who have participated in AAMNVA
and would like to present their learning experiences at conferences, field-test
and review learning experiences submitted by other educators, and assist AAMVA
staff in facilitating the Learn with Primary Sources Workshop series. More
information about the Ambassadors program and the Learn with Primary Sources
Workshop series can be found at www.primarysourcelearning.org.
Northern Virginia’s
AAM
program Web site is located at: http://www.aamnva.org/.