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Camp Internet California Backcountry Teachers Briefing
February 7-11, 2000
Iron Rush
The entire text for the Railroads section is now online and ready for your class to study. Along with it, the Backcountry classrooms have been sent a railroad spike as a piece of railroad history. When the spike arrives, have the students examine it, and ask them to imagine the life of a Chinese laborer working as one of 12-14,000 'coolies' on the transcontinental railroad from Sacramento, California to Promontory, Utah. These laborers were responsible for digging of tunnels through solid granite, laying the miles of track, and pounding in the stakes.
Railroad Dig
Next week, on Tuesday February 15th, the Camp is hosting a Railroad Dig. This will be a live online project challenging the students to unearth historical facts and details about the effort to construct this great Work of the Age. The Dig will be open in the chat room from 9am-12noon. Please send an RSVP to camp@rain.org.
California Artists
As we add text and illustrations to this unit, you will find it a very interesting period of California history as it was a time in between the first rough-and-ready mining efforts and the formalization of a California culture. Next week will explore more in-depth the importance of the Backcountry in these artist's lives and works, and how the affected the rest of the nation's - and the world's - view of California.
Reading
This week continues the Robert Louis Stevenson in California reading, and ties into the San Francisco and the Bohemian Club section in the history area. In preparation for Valentines Day, a suggested activity is to have students read the love story, and then create one of two letters that might have gone between RLS and Fannie.
First, for the girls, when Fannie sent a letter to Robert one year after having left Europe, it was such an urgent letter that he packed up and set sail in a mater of hours with out leaving word with his family. What could have been in the letter that would have drawn him away from his home an family with such haste ? And to set sail and travel overland for 11,000 miles to reach her ? Have the students compose a possible letter she might have sent. (The original was never read by anyone other than RLS, and it has been lost).
Second, for the boys, Stevenson rushed the 11,000 miles to California, and then spent nearly an entire year waiting for Fannie to agree to marry him. In that time he explored the mountains and seashore around Monterey, visited with artists in San Francisco and at the Bohemian Club, and wrote Fannie letters encouraging her to marry him. Ask the boys to write a love poem and letter, as RLS might have sent to Fannie. It needs to include a poem with words about his experiences in nature - up in the forests in the mountains, or strolling the empty seashore … waiting for her to be free to marry him. It can contain memories about their time in France together, and can refer to the poem already online that he wrote for her.
Once they have completed their writings, select several of the best and ask those students to send them to camp@rain.org by email, including their name, your name, and their grade. If received by Valentines Day, we will post them in a special Valentines section online.
Science
Classrooms can continue to keep their weather records during February. We are busy building the Plant Communities resources, complete with virtual tours. As soon as the materials are ready for viewing, we will announce it to the list. We will be covering the forests, deserts, and coastal biomes - with lots of learning activities.
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