CAN DO MEETING NOTES for May 22, 2000

Carol got the BIG ONE!

Its official and Carol had a chance to tell us more about it. In brief. Carol has, through much hard work ,managed to secure a five million dollar - five year NSF grant to enhance professional skills training for low country teachers. Our sincere congratulations to Carol and her entire team for their hard work and for bringing our community such a fabulous resource.

EarthKAM Mission Wrap Up

We discussed the final image CD-ROM. Several evaluation copies of the pilot version were distributed for classroom teacher feedback. If you want to have a copy for evaluation please contact Jim. If you have not submitted YOUR list of favorite images - please do so they can be included on the final version of this disk.

We also discussed the follow up with EarthKam and the need to work on aligning what we do with Can Do and the science standards. Nancy Parson. Elaine Berndt, Carol Swan, Margaret Spigner, Ruth Truluck and Robin Rutherford all gave brief summaries on their classroom activities using the images their classes secured on STS-99. Most have additional activities planned for next Fall when there will be time for more in-depth research. Examples of some of the student work will be submitted for the Can Do website it the near future. Teachers who were not able to attend this meeting are still encouraged to submit work to share through the Internet.

Jim is also soliciting additional SMOC photos and press clippings from STS-99 for the website and for the CD-ROM. Since I wasn't here in person to take the pictures this time I am counting on you all to help by sharing your best snapshots.

Everyone agrees that the technical support team did a fabulous job in setting up the control room and making it ready for serious work to be done. Our sincere thanks go to all those hard working volunteers who gave so freely of their time and talent.

Kaleidoscope 2001

Dr. Lillian Trettin from the MUSC Department of Environmental Sciences was a special guest and made a very interesting proposal for a new Middle School project which will link your classroom with a classroom in Sweden to study global environmental issues.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

The big news locally was the grand opening of the South Carolina Aquarium - be sure to plan to go. It is well designed to tell the complete story of South Carolina marine life. Education is a major priority and our own Carmelina Livingston is now in the South Carolina Aquarium education office. She will meet with us next fall about working with the Aquarium on some educational projects. Her new Email is clivingston@scaquarium.org Click on the icon above to get full details.

The TAZ Gas Payload Project with Warner Brothers is still chugging along. Warner Brothers is planning to send literature to over 113,000 teachers through the Weekly Reader. There will be a competition to imagineer an alien friend for Taz complete with artwork.

Can Do teachers' role in this will be to serve as hosts, advisors and competition judges funded through Warner Brothers. The Can Do technical team (Payloads -R -Us) under the ever capable direction of chief engineer Tom O'Brien will be responsible for the design and fabrication of the payload itself.

GeoCam II - This summer will be used for active design and testing for the GeoCam II earth observation camera apparatus. We want to have a working prototype ready to demonstrate in your classroom next fall. Then we will ask you to help us develop new curriculum materials for multispectral imaging.

Where can we reach you this summer?

At the meeting we asked everyone to fill out an update form to make sure that we have valid email, phone and address information for everyone. Are you going to a new school? Have you changed email? Be sure to send a message to let us know so that we won't lose touch over the summer. We also used the forms to get an update on the state and usage of technology in the classroom. Even from our small sample certain trends showed when compared to previous surveys.

More of you have classroom computers and you and your students use them more
You use email more and spend more time on line doing research
almost everyone now checks their email at least once a day
more of you now use PCs (especially Dells) and more of your computers are networked

PERSONAL NEWS

Kathy Rackley - Everyone was glad to have Kathy back among us after her incredible fight to regain her health. For those that weren't there in person, I can tell you that Kathy looks great and has all the energy and great ideas that we have come to depend on. The voice is still a little weak so Kathy will have to practice classroom management skills other that yelling when she returns to the classroom this fall.

Ruth Truluck had an unfortunate encounter with a carelessly placed book bag resulting in major trauma to the face - including a broken nose. The good news is that she has healed up so well that except for a discrete band aide you wouldn't know it had ever happened.

Eve Katuna was not able to join us for this meeting but she had an excellent excuse since she was at Chapel Hill for the graduation of her daughter from the University of North Carolina. Congratulations go out to both the distinguished scholar and her proud mother.

Carmelina Livingston has a new job - see above

Carol Tempel has made big news - see above

Jim Nicholson has returned from Albuquerque as a brand new and unbelievably proud grandfather. Of course he has immediately created, with the help of his wife, the grandbaby Wiley website complete with web movies and web pictures updated almost daily. If anyone else out there is going to be a long distance grandparent, I can strongly recommend a web camera as a wonderful way to stay connected. The newer ones are surprisingly inexpensive and very very easy and fun to use.

CLICK HERE FOR GRANDSON WILEY'S WORLD

Carol has suggested that we may all want to take a look at the upcoming Jason Project. This year Jason is going to Hawaii to do environmental research that should link very well with some of our ongoing projects. We also have some great images of Hawaii from space going all the way back to the original GeoCam payload to draw on. Click on the icon above to get full details.

SUMMER SOCIAL BEING PLANNED

In addition to the lucky group heading off to Andros Island in the Bahamas this July, we thought we would like to get everyone together for just a plain old good time, without teaching schedules, shuttle launch schedules or any other kind of schedule to worry about. Details are being worked out but look for a date in early July. We are thinking about a combination cookout (possible campout) and sky party all rolled into one. Your input is welcome. As soon as we have a firm date it will be posted on the web and sent out by email.