PART 1: Next year's Passport to Knowledge projects
PART 2: Please provide us with an evaluation
PART 3: We want to feature your students' work online
The school year is quickly coming to a close for most of you and it is an opportune time to inform you of future project plans. Two PTK projects are scheduled for the upcoming school year, Live from Mars and Live from Antarctica2. Both of these projects will continue PTK's commitment to providing classrooms with live telecasts from scientific frontiers, exceptional hands-on print curriculum materials, rich and varied web-based resources, extensive email information and discussion groups and such PTK constants as "Researcher Q and A "and "Field Journals,". The projects again are targeted at the middle school grade levels, but will have appeal above and below that range. Availability of teacher's kits for the projects will be announced widely on the Internet; to make sure you are in the loop, visit this Website: http://passporttoknowledge.com.
Live from Mars Overview:
In 1996 NASA will launch two missions to Mars, and by participating in Passport to Knowledge, you and your students can travel along!
Live from Mars, a collaboration between Passport to Knowledge and the Mars Exploration Directorate of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will follow both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder. Pathfinder will land *Sojourner,* the micro-rover, on the Red Planet on July 4, 1997. Four live telecasts are scheduled between November 1996 and November of 1997. Plans are also underway for a training tape to assist integration of this project into classrooms, home schools, and lifelong learning.
Each video and accompanying on-line and print materials will allow educators to customize the learning experience, whether they use only one program, live or on tape, or follow the Mars missions across the school years.
As with all Passport to Knowledge projects, interactive on-line opportunities, and an and an original Teacher's Guide will make the human dimension of contemporary science and high tech careers come to life. Curriculum strands include: Mars geology and evolution as a planet, robotics, interplanetary weather, exobiology, mission planning, rocketry, comparisons between planets of the solar system, and Mars imaging resources.
Live telecast air dates of first two programs:
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 19, 1996, 13:00-14:00 ET, and THURSDAY APRIL 24, 1997, 13:00-14:00 ET
Mission exigencies *may* result in changing one or more of these dates. But we hope not! This early lead time has been planned to permit as widespread carriage on PBS stations as possible. As ever, please check local listings!
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Live from Antarctica2 Overview:
Live from Antarctica2 will return to the icy continent, featured in the 1994-95 Passport to Knowledge module. This visit will focus more intensely on marine biology and the fascinating interaction of ocean, ice, seals, and penguins. The latest research on global climate change, ozone, UV radiation, and earth sciences will also be featured in new activities appropriate for elementary, middle, and high schools. Teachers who participated in 1994-95 will find themselves well-prepared for new students. Videotapes, our Internet archive and existing hands-on activities will provide background for newcomers before the 1996-97 programs. Thoroughly updated on-line resources and curriculum materials will be created to illuminate the new creatures and locations which we will visit and new researchers we'll encounter.
Live from Antarctica will rely on collaboration between advanced NASA telecommunications and NSF's Office of Polar Programs, which funds and manages the United States Antarctic Program.
Live telecast air dates:
THURSDAY JANUARY 23, 1997, 13:00-14:00 ET THURSDAY JANUARY 30, 1997, 13:00-14:00 ET, and THURSDAY FEBRUARY 6, 1997, 13:00-14:00 ET
As ever, please check local listings in advance of air time to schedule your students' live participation.
By now you should have received a separate Email message with a project evaluation form. The form is also available on the LHST Web (see the Teachers' Lounge or the Feedback button). And it was also included in the printed teacher's kit that some received.
Some folks have already returned the survey. Thanks to them. For those that haven't responded, we hope you will provide us with your input via this form Whether you choose Email, Web or snailmail doesn't matter. What does matter is that you do YOUR part by providing the Passport to Knowledge team with this critically needed information.
Remember, the first five hundred educators returning their evaluation forms will receive their choice of CD-ROM, either the Astronomy Village (for Mac only) or a Mars resource CD-ROM.
THANKS!
A section of our Web has been reserved for your students. Highlighted there are class photos or examples of student work from the LHST project (writing assignments, artwork, pictures of models built, etc). We have some examples online currently but we'd like to have lots more. Please consider sending us information by or about your students that we can share via the LHST Web.
We know that many Passport to Knowledge teachers are special. Perhaps your kids are special also. If so, consider the following:
Ms. Perry Norton writes:
Can you help me locate kids between ages 8-14 who are doing
truly remarkable things online (or anything ELSE, for that matter)? It's
for a national cable program for kids called IN A MINUTE on USA Networks.
They need kids who are bright/articulate/unusual/amazing in some way.
Any referrals would be appreciated.
Email PerryNort@aol.com
or call Ms. Perry Norton at USA Networks at 212-408-8809. Thanks!
