For the
staff of PFI, the three-month period of October,
November, and December is both one of planning for the upcoming workshop season
and promoting those workshops at professional meetings. PFI is offering six workshops in 2008,
including the popular distance learning version of Earth and Environmental
Science (EES) for Middle and High School Teachers. It will run for eight weeks,
from February 16-April 14. The standard workshop, EES for Middle and High
School Teachers, will run from June 15-20, and EES for Elementary Teachers is
from June 22-27. Our two 3-day workshops will run back-to-back, making it
convenient, we hope, for educators to take both short workshops if they wish.
Recycling and Composting in the Classroom will run July 13-15, and the
brand-new Forest Invasives is from July 16-18. Our
final workshop will be Forest Ecology, from July 20-25. All workshops carry continuing
education (CEU) credits as well as credit toward certification as a North
Carolina Environmental Educator. Registration is now open on our website (www.pisgahforestinstitute.org),
and these workshops are already filling.
PFI is particularly interested in
encouraging teachers from Rutherford County, NC to participate in our workshops
this summer. We have received a donation (from a donor who wishes to remain
anonymous) that will underwrite the costs associated with participant expenses
for teachers from Rutherford County for the 2008 workshop season. Both
the donor and PFI would like to see an increase in
the number of Rutherford County teachers pursuing these workshop
opportunities. If you are from Rutherford County or know of someone from there who
could benefit, please encourage them to register early for our workshops!
During the fall, Operations Manager
Kevin Fischer and Executive Director Jennifer Frick-Ruppert
attended three professional meetings. In attending these conferences, we
advertise PFI, attend sessions to learn more
about the environmental education field, and interact with other professionals.
These meetings offer us a chance not only to learn more about our area of
professional expertise, but also to gauge our program against other, similar
ones. We come away from the conferences with ideas for improvements to our
workshops, a better understanding of how our program provides an essential
service, and more knowledge about the field of environmental education. We also
advertise the PFI programs to more educators,
resulting in new workshop participants.
Environmental Educators of North
Carolina (EENC) met in nearby Arden, NC from October 26-28. On Friday the
26th and Saturday the 27th, we attended informational
sessions including a poster session where we answered questions about our
program. PFI had a poster on display throughout
the meeting period that was prepared by Kevin and intern Austin Brodfuhrer. On Sunday the 28th, Jennifer and
Kevin assisted the organizers of the meeting by leading a hike through DuPont State Forest focused on the flora, fauna, and
geology associated with the numerous waterfalls of the area.
From November 7-10, we attended the
annual ERC director’s conference, this year
held at Mt. Hood, Oregon. Grants Manager Tanya Bruce of the ERC, ably assisted by Tanya Riddle, did a fantastic job of planning
the program, even leaving us an afternoon to explore the area on our own. We
spent our “free” afternoon hiking into an old-growth forest along the Salmon River and were awed by its magnificence.
It was an interesting comparison to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, the east’s equivalent old-growth
stand, which we explored this past summer with the Forest Ecology
participants. This meeting allowed us to
interact with the staff from the ERC, KCeeI, and PFI-CA, to talk about our programs, their
similarities, their successes, and their futures, and it gave us a chance to
focus on the operation of our program with Tanya and with executive director John Hunter. We appreciate these opportunities,
and enjoyed the connection that Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge has with the
USDA Forest Service. Thanks to Tanya, Tanya, and John!
With only a few days back in NC, we
next attended the annual meeting of the North American Association of
Environmental Educators (NAAEE), which was held this year in Virginia Beach from November 14-17. Not only did
we have a booth with our poster up during the entire meeting period, where we
talked with dozens of interested people, but we also put a PFI brochure into every attendee’s
registration packet. We hoped this advertising would result in new participants
this summer and have, in fact, already had one new registrant from New York sign up for the Distance Learning
EES workshop as a result. During the meeting, Jennifer attended the sessions
focused on fundraising while Kevin attended more varied sessions including
those that generated new ideas for workshops and for activities within
workshops. We had the chance to discuss the PFI program with several people,
including Dr. Safiya Samman,
director of the USDA Forest Service’s Conservation Education program.
During the next quarter, we have one
more local meeting to attend, the PEAK conference held at nearby Camp Greenville in early February. Kevin and
Jennifer have agreed to lead one session that will feature PFI programs, thereby reducing the
costs associated with attending the conference while simultaneously advertising
the PFI workshops. PEAK (Preparing
Educators for Adventures with Kids) is attended mainly by camp counselors and
educators from the South Carolina-North Carolina region. Many of these
educators have already attended PFI workshops, and we hope that more of
them will be introduced to PFI at this year’s conference.
. Keystone College Environmental Education Institute
As we enter
into 2008, KceeI begins to make preparations for its
upcoming courses and workshops. Our
final one-day workshop of 2007 was Pennsylvania
Songbirds. This workshop was held on
Wednesday, October 24 and there were 16 teachers who participated even though
the weather did not. It was a cold and
very rainy day, not too great for birding.
The teachers did gain some hands-on experience, however, with a bird
banding demonstration by Dr. Jerry Skinner conducted in the morning. Following that, Rich Gulyas,
Education Coordinator from the Bradford County Conservation District, walked
the teachers through a number of lesson plans from the PA state curriculum
guide, Pennsylvania Songbirds. After lunch, it was more lesson plans and one
final outdoor activity as the weather started to clear. This was the first time KceeI
offered this workshop and it turned out to be a success despite the
weather.
The second
annual Director’s Conference was an amazing experience that KceeI
was privileged to be a part of. The
conference took place from November 7th – 10th,
2007 and
was held at the beautiful Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon.
As expected, this was a great opportunity to interact and share ideas
with the other institutes. Each
institute learned from one another because we are very alike, but so different
in many ways. KceeI
appreciated the input that was shared from the other institutes. Every aspect of this conference was superb
from the lodging and food to the presentations and educational
experiences. KceeI
would like to thank everyone at ERC who made this event possible – John Hunter, Tanya Bruce, and Tanya Riddle.
As KceeI enters into this New Year, we are very optimistic
about our upcoming courses. The 2008
brochure will be in our hands within the next few weeks and we will begin
mailing over 10,000. Nora Dillon, Operations Coordinator, maintains
an accurate database of all past attendees.
As a way to market our programs, each past KceeI
attendee will receive 10 copies of the brochure with a letter asking them to
share these with fellow educators in their schools. This has proved as a very beneficial strategy
for recruiting new teachers.
In addition
to past participants, the following is a list of other places that our brochure
is mailed: every public school in Pennsylvania, principles, science curriculum
coordinators, superintendents, intermediate units, private and charter schools,
and some out of state school districts in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
KceeI has
been working with Dr. David Reese, Assistant Executive Director of the NEIU-19,
on a project that began in the fall of 2007.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education has updated Professional Education
Guidelines for all courses that carry CPE credit. These guidelines outline a standard process
to be completed for professional course offerings. Each KceeI course
has to be reviewed and re-formatted to fit into these new standards. Dr. Reese has been a very big help in this
matter.
As KceeI moves through these winter months, we continue to
work on the schedule for our newest course, Climate Change and the Energy Challenge (July 20th-25th). As part of this course we will be dedicating
one day to the Educational Global Climate Modeling Project (EdGCM). This project develops and distributes a
research-quality global climate model (GCM) with a user-friendly
interface that runs on desktop computers. Anyone can explore the subject of climate
change using the same methods and tools that scientists employ. The software allows users to experience the
full scientific process including: designing experiments, setting up and
running computer simulations, post-processing output, using scientific
visualization to display results, and creating scientific
manuscripts ready for publishing to the web. The teachers who participate in this course
will have a first-had experience with this technology.
Howard Jennings, Director of KceeI, will go
before the Continuing Professional Education Committee of the NEIU-19 at the
end of January to petition for approval of CPE credit for the Climate Change and the Energy Challenge course.
As a
marketing tool to reach a broader spectrum of educators, KceeI,
with the help of the Media Services Lab at Keystone College, has developed a short video piece
that focuses on environmental education using nature as the laboratory and
highlights some of our past courses. The
video is posted on our website at www.KceeI.keystone.edu
– check it out!
In other
news, it has just been decided that Dr. Robert Cook, Interim Dean of Academic affairs
at Keystone College will serve as Dean for two more
years. After that time, a search
committee will be established to find a replacement. This is very good news to KceeI
because Howard
Jennings reports directly to Dr. Cook.
Since taking on the role of Dean, Dr. Cook has greatly helped KceeI’s visibility on campus.
Just a
reminder…
KceeI’s
website is located at www.KceeI.keystone.edu
PACIFIC FOREST
INSTITUTE
In November
the PFI staff went to a conference hosted
by ERC, at the Timberline Lodge in Oregon where we were warmly greeted by
staff from the Pisgah Forest Institute, the Keystone College Environmental Education
Institute and ERC staff. The meetings were very
productive as we were able to compare programs, share our successes and
difficulties, and learn about important aspects of grant requirements – all in
a gorgeous place.
With the
New Year and a new budget have come changes.
Bill
Dennison, the previous Director, has moved to a support role and will continue
to be involved on our Advisory Board as he continues his well-deserved
retirement and associated travel. Bill
was very helpful to PFI as we got started and his work on
behalf of PFI has been and still is much
appreciated. With the Director position open, Mark McReynolds, previously the Program
Coordinator, moved in to the Director position and is excited about continuing
the good work that Bill started. We have
also put more effort into looking for volunteers having registered at a local
volunteer center, hosted a table at a WJU student function and posted a
Volunteer Program Assistant position on the WJU web page which we recently
filled with Dennis Conrad. Dennis is a
retired school teacher with experience in the USFS, CA Fish and Game, and
environmental education.
Staff at the Pacific Forest Institute have been planning for the summer and
spring. A full schedule of one day and
evening environmental education workshops for teachers has been set up for the
spring – Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), Project WILD (Animals and
ecology), Project WILD Aquatic (Aquatic animals and ecology), Project Learning
Tree (Trees, plants, and forest ecology) and Flying WILD (Bird education). These programs are used nationally and
teachers will receive the associated activity guides free at each
workshop. Some of these workshops are at
William Jessup University, while others are off-site and
involve tours, and we hope to attract more people through the tour approach.
Summer 2008
environmental education workshop dates at Hidden Lakes have been confirmed for July 8-11
and August 5-8. This has been our most
favored base of operations for workshops and we are excited about being able to
get two weeks in the cool Sierra at 6400 ft. during our normally blazing hot
summer. As before, we will use and enjoy
our facilities at William Jessup University: the PFI Science Lab and the WJU Preserve –
both USFS/ERC grant funded projects. Work on the
WJU Preserve project is progressing and we recently received a positive letter
from the Corps of Engineers which should enable us to make more progress.
Pacific
Forest Institute's website is located at: http://www.jessup.edu/academics/pacificforestinstitute.
10/11 BREC -Carolina
Connect
[HMG] In
October 2007, the Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council held its premier event,
Carolina Connect. This meeting serves as a launching ground for many WNC
businesses in particular for funding opportunities. Many of these businesses
are technical or innovation-oriented. As part of the ERC
mission, we look to learn more about these businesses and determine if there is
an opportunity for ERC
Broadband to partner or other support
their efforts.
In
December, Hunter Goosmann,
General Manager for ERC
Broadband was named Secretary to the Board of
Directors of the Centers for Environmental and Climatic Interaction. CECI is a
partnership between regional groups who are establishing themselves as a
resource for climate-related decision making tools, effectively brokering
climate information between users and the world's source of environmental data
- the National Climatic Data Center.
11/5 NOAA Users Conference @ GPI
[HMG] At
the NOAA Users Conference, the CECI group established itself as a team focused
on its goal of brokering climate information to the world. At this event, CECI
unveiled its mini-film Climate Alive
(www.climatealive.com)
that describes the group and Asheville's
ability to respond to this opportunity.
11/19
Deborah and Hunter COC for
Randy Hammer reception
[HMG] ERC
Broadband was also present at the Chamber's
reception for Randy Hammer, the Asheville Citizen Times publisher. As the
broadband provider to the Citizen Times, it is good knowing
that its Internet distribution channels are large and available to all its
users.
12/6 Deborah attended Advantage Innovation 2007
conference at Crown
Plaza
We
are also proud to report that Theo Lavis, a
network administrator at ERC
Broadband, recently completed certifications for
Network + and Security +. Continual learning is important for everyone and we
are very proud of Theo's accomplishment.
ERC Broadband’s website is located at: www.ercbroadband.org.
AAM Central Office
AAM staff are
engaged in a new initiative this year in cooperation with Mars Hill College,
Buncombe County Schools, and WeatherBug®. Entitled “World Wide Weather: Making the Most
of Online Resources to Understand Weather and its Effect on our Daily Lives,”
the project is now underway with seven area elementary schools involving 22
teachers. Teachers will complete 14
hours of workshop time, then prepare a class project for students to complete. Students will work in teams to complete their
assignments and project goals, then create an exhibit
for a competitive Share Fair to be held in April.
Designed as
a multi-disciplinary literacy project, WWW focuses on the study of weather by
combining several learning elements: 1)
the science of weather; 2) using online newspapers and tools to study how
weather impacts community preparedness and response; 3) comparing and
contrasting weather and community events in two or more locales; and 4)
studying historic weather events and comparing these with present-day events. The schools will each use WeatherBug
as the primary online curriculum for studying present-day weather, but will
also use resources from NOAA, the National Weather Service, and others.
But this
project is unique in AAM in targeting the science curriculum
in particular. Even though AAM had worked with WeatherBug
before, the idea for WWW was born when the Library launched its “Chronicling
America” collection in early 2007. It
turns out that weather was as popular a front-page topic a century ago as it is
today! Now with access to a searchable
database of thousands of 100-year-old newspapers, students will be able to read
about historic weather events, weather forecasting, emergency response, and
community preparation. For example, one Florida newspaper reports the impacts of a
serious drought in Georgia in 1909. Because Western North Carolina is now in a severe drought, these
two events can form the basis of a student project study using current online
data and resources together with newspapers, personal accounts, photos,
recordings, and films from the Library of Congress. But the newspapers alone will provide a rich
perspective on how our understanding of weather has changed and our access to
credible weather information has improved our ability to prepare for it.
On January
16, teachers will complete their final workshop, then continue planning and
implementing their projects. AAM staff have
been making site visits to each school and will be monitoring progress
throughout the spring.
AAM recently received an inquiry from a
McDowell County junior high school that is also
interested in a WWW-type project for their grade 7-9 science teachers that will
also use both WeatherBug and the Chronicling America
collection. Planning is underway and the
first workshop is planned for February 1.
The WWW workshop series is being taught by Bob Pettis and Karin Hedberg from AAM, AnneMarie
Walter from Mars Hill College, Jane Milner and Conni Mulligan from Buncombe County Schools, and
Diana Dell from WeatherBug.
More
information about AAM in WNC is available at www.aamprogram.org, www.aamlearning.org, and at the
individual partner websites at http://www.brevard.edu/aam/,
http://www.faytechcc.edu/scholars/,
http://www.mhc.edu/aamind/,
http://aam.montreat.edu/, and http://aam.wcu.edu.
Fayetteville Technical Community College & Wingate University
During this
first quarter, AAM staff have
been engaged in ordering materials and laptops, recruiting students, and
getting the classes ready. The first class began January 7. More about FTCC’s
progress will be reported in April.
Mars Hill College
As the new
semester starts up, AnneMarie Walter and Dr. Tom Destino will repeat their successful primary source
activities with the pre-service teachers as they create their capstone
projects. ED470 Diversity in American
Schools serves to ensure that graduating seniors and licensure-only candidates
demonstrate understanding of ways to reach every student, including the use of
hands-on primary source-based learning objects.
Walter, Destino, and AAM alumnae Polly Johnson will discuss
and demonstrate a number of ways to use primary sources, and Walter will lead a
guided lab as the pre-service teachers develop their own classroom activities.
After
co-facilitating a professional development workshop in the fall, Walter is now
updating the North Buncombe High School Literacy in Secondary Schools
website. Many of the teachers have
submitted their suggestions for additional content suitable for their
students.
In
addition, Walter will be teaching two sections of CS200, Computer Applications
for Educators to pre-service teachers at Mars Hill.
Montreat College
During the
fall semester, the Montreat AAM partner spent most of the term
planning for the spring. The PROPEL curriculum created by the Western North
Carolina AAM partners has been restructured and
will be used as a spring workshop series for Montreat undergraduate teacher
education majors. The original plan called for 3rd-5th grade in-service
teachers to work with the pre-service teachers; however, due to low interest
from the in-service teachers, the plan has been modified and the spring series
will consist of pre-service teachers only. The low interest is not a surprise
since state-mandated testing occurs in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, a process
which increases teachers’ already busy workloads. Therefore, the workshop
series will target pre-service teachers preparing for their junior student
teaching. A goal for the AAM partner at Montreat is to also host
a workshop series for the entire Teacher Education Department. The AAM director is currently working with
the Education Department chair to make the necessary arrangements for this
series to occur.
In addition to restructuring the PROPEL curriculum and preparing materials for
the pre-service teachers, the AAM computer lab was upgraded to a
mobile laptop lab. Since the classes at Montreat are relatively small, the
mobile lab will allow for multiple classes to be using the computers at the
same time. Both AAM and the Teacher Education
Department are excited about the learning opportunities this new lab design
will bring.
Western Carolina University
The Western
Carolina University AAM project participants (WCU faculty)
have completed formal workshops and are preparing to teach Library of Congress
American Memory primary sources utilization beginning in February. All AAM faculty members are preparing for a
final group meeting on January 26th where they will show-and-tell their
lessons. At the request of several WCU AAM faculty members, AAM personnel will model teaching their
classes how to use the Library of Congress during February and March.
Activities created by students of the AAM faculty will be collected,
evaluated, and posted to a pathfinder database which will demonstrate various
ways to use Library primary sources in a wide variety of fields. These
resources will be available to other faculty and to the K-12 community. At the
completion of the semester, AAM faculty classes will be asked to
complete reflections of the AAM component of their course.
Work with the Mountain Heritage Center to take over web housing and
continued maintenance of WCU AAM materials has begun. The design and
work flow process is being developed. Using materials created during PROPEL,
WCU has completed standardization of 27 “help sheets” that will be the first
items placed on the AAM section of Mountain Heritage Center web site. The help sheets topics
include: Activity Instructions, Analysis Forms, Primary Sources, Images, Using
the Library of Congress, Maps, Posters, Sound, Video, and Primary Sources in
Newsletters. Additional help sheets will be completed during spring semester.
Additionally, all AAM Online Education materials and
lessons have been given to the Mountain Heritage Center to house on their server.
Pathfinders from PROPEL have been completed and posted online. WCU teacher-made
unit plans and lesson plans from Phase I are being reviewed and prepared for
future posting on the Mountain Heritage web site. Lesson plans, pathfinders,
and additional materials used for lessons created by WCU-AAM faculty are being developed using
standardized templates and forms and will web-ready and loaded to the website.
Faculty will have the opportunity to revise and update their lessons after
teaching them in the spring.
Local primary sources used in conjunction with American Memory primary sources
are being sorted and placed in separate database along with pertinent
information about the images. These images will be housed at the Mountain Heritage Center as a part of the unit plans and
lesson plans as well as being searchable through the image database.