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Camp Internet Expedition VI Briefing
Expedition V and VI are being combined this year as the science launch activities, and you will receive the Expedition Passport answers to both later this month. Expedition V. was Paleontology, Geology, and Astronomy.
Expedition VI. has the following units:
Geography, February 1-5
Oceanography, February 8-12
Meteorology, February 15-19.
The astronomy photos being taken for you by the RAAP professor at UCSB will be taken and posted online as soon as clear skies permits. You can still send your request for stars ( they can't capture entire constellations ) to camp@rain.org.
Preparations for Expedition VI.
Please open the Smithsonian Weather Station kit and install it somewhere on your campus that the kids can easily reach from the classroom, under the open sky. We suggest assigning a team or teams of students to then monitor the station every day at a specified time. Please have them send their findings by email to camp-students-l@rain.org each day, clearly designating which school they are reporting from. This is a valuable hands-on student activity encouraging them to develop scientific inquiry skills, and to become a more active part of the Camp community. We will then post the findings on the web site, comparing rainfall / temperature / wind speed at the different schools.
Upcoming Live Chats
In conjunction with Expedition VI. activities, the live chats being scheduled will featured experts in Geography and Oceanography, and a second chat with experts from the National Weather Service for our Meteorology session. If you have special scheduling needs in order to participate, please let us know right away so we can include your class in these wonderful online learning opportunities.
Video Online
Camp staff and counselors have begun building a video library of interviews with our featured Trail Guides. Already online and available for viewing is an interview and video series from the Jean-Michele Cousteau Institute featuring lead biologist, Dr. Richard Murphy. Cousteau has also been interviewed and will be posted this month. In addition, Trail Guides from the Channel Islands National Park and California Fisheries will soon be online for viewing with your classroom. This area of the Camp will become an increasingly important part of our interactive learning activities. Please let us know if you require assistance setting up your computer to view these video programs.
Camp Counselors
The Camp will be sending a team of Camp Counselors out to classrooms this month. Carl Demangate, who joined us during the summer workshop in the computer lab, will be visiting up to twelve classrooms with Camp videographer, Richard Streeter. The purpose of these visits is two fold.
First, Carl is tasked to meet with the teachers to gather information about how the Camp program is working in their classrooms and areas for improvement that you would like to suggest be incorporated in future sessions. He will also work with the kids on the computer to demonstrate special Camp features. And he will collect information regarding the technology upgrades you need to make the Camp more accessible for your students. Feel free to ask him to show you how to use Camp features you may not yet be comfortable with. Richard will be attending to help you view our videos online, and to videotape student activities - online and hands-on - and if you would like to offer comments on tape about the program, you will have that option. We will provide a standard video-online release form for your students to take home to their families to ensure we have their permission to post the materials online. You will be receiving a call from one of our Camp Counselors regarding proposed dates and times for the site visits.
Creating a Class Web Site - FREE Workshop
This Spring we will be offering a set of Saturday classes FREE to our Camp Outpost teachers to help you gain the basic skills required to begin posting your student's work online. Watch for announcements of dates and times. The goal of these free workshops is to offer you a chance to develop your own professional skills in web applications for the classroom, and then to allow you to help your kids create their own Virtual Science and History Fair project online to share with the other Camp classrooms this spring. You will be asked to bring samples of student work - essays, drawings, photographs, etc. to the workshop so you can actually begin building the classrooms web site during the workshop, with technical assistance. Let us know now if you are interested in attending the basic Saturday workshop, tentatively scheduled to be held in a central San Bernardino location.
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