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Keystone Weekly
volume 1, issue 5 October 25, 1999

This week's Key Points: *From the Director's Desk,* *Teacher Tips,* and *Suggested Reading*

From the Director's Desk

Kit Implementation Query:
As of Monday morning I've received responses back from 15 KSN participants regarding which kit(s) they are implementing in their classroom this year. If you have not yet replied to the email, please try to do so. Our planning will be much more aligned to your efforts if we have implementation specifics for everyone. It would also be appreciated if you could contact any KSN colleagues at your site you know are currently without email access and forward their information regarding kit implementation.Thanks!

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Teacher Tips

Have you found some interesting websites that support the use of the kits or the Internet in your classroom? Susie Brobston from the William Penn School District has!

Recently Susie recommended a site that has very interesting weather-related pictures and she wrote the following:

"Here is an incredible photo collection from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Click on every part of the site. Remember, you can right click on any photo and then left click on SET A WALLPAPER to decorate your desktop (doesn't apply to WebTV). I hope you enjoy these as much as I do."
http://www.photolib.noa a.gov/

These would enhance an earth science classroom by providing exciting visuals. Teachers involved in using the STC Weather kit might allow students to pick out one photo from the weather photo album and ask the questions: "What can you tell me about your photo? What do you think is happening?" Weather kit users may also want to have the children identify basic weather patterns with the photos. Land & Water kit classrooms may want to examine catastrophic-event photos and ask "How do you think that this event may change the land surface?". Electricity kit users could examine photos of lightning and discuss the discharge of static electricity to earth and to other clouds. Life Science photos can be found in "Chesapeake Critters" and the fact that these are indigenous species is an important issue, since children can be very engaged in finding out about local habitats.

Susie also e-mailed these additional activities that she uses with other accessed sites and the NOAA visuals:

"Most recently, I've been printing news photos from Reuters and AP and using them to help my class understand cause and effect, necessary to comprehend in all subjects. I took pictures from the satellites of Hurricane Floyd and posted them under the heading CAUSE. Then I printed pictures of the flooded homes in South Carolina to put under EFFECT. Then, as I taught how chains of cause and effect tell a whole story, I moved the flooded houses under CAUSE and posted pictures of piles of discarded furniture, ruined houses, and dead farm animals under EFFECT. Then, we practiced predicting... (for example) If I move these pictures of damage to the CAUSE column, what could be the effect? Currently, I'm starting a unit on Light in science. Great one for inquiry method and lots of stuff in the Internet to help. I am using a unit that I adapted from our text, (there does not seem to be much in the way of kit resources for this subject area)."
Please send any ideas you may have for "Teacher Tips." You can send them to us for inclusion in "The Weekly," or send them to any staff member.
For now, try this last Brobston find:
http://www.ben2.ucla.edu/~permadi/java/spaint/spaint.ht ml
Warning, this site is fun to play and may be irresistible!
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Suggested Reading
Now that technology exists in schools, what should teachers do with it? Well, obviously, we think that teachers should use it to support the use of science kits and inquiry. Of course, we realize that there are other subjects in your school day as well. This article from Technology Counts '99 offers some perspectives.
http://www.edweek.org/sreports/tc99/articles/screening .htm
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The Franklin Institute gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the National Science Foundation and Unisys Corporation.

The Franklin Institute is the Demonstration Site for the Eisenhower Mid-Atlantic Consortium, providing science and math resources for teachers.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

webteam@keystone.fi.edu