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California Backcountry


Teacher's Briefing


For the Week of October 11 - 15


Upcoming Dates to Make Reservations For

The rest of the month of October is packed with exciting live chat opportunities - use the calendar for your track to see the opportunities ahead. For Backcountry track classes, please select from the following online learning opportunities and send your reservations to camp@rain.org. Gabrielino/Sierras trade network Oct. 13, 9-11am; Volcano Geology LIVE from Hawaii, Oct 19th 10-noon, Native American Basketmaking LIVE from Yosemite Oct 21, 9-11am; Yosemite Geology October 28, 9-11am. Again, preparing your class with 4-6 specific questions helps keep the Trail Guide chats focused. We ask teachers to instruct the students not to post casual off-the-cuff comments to one another as it clutters the chat and distracts from the educational exchanges that are also taking place. If you are in a large lab and can not supervise every student, then we suggest having them work in groups of 3-4 around one computer per group to make it more manageable. The Trail Guides are experts taking time out of their busy work schedule to meet with us online, and if the students understand this, then respectful postings will be made and the learning value will be very high.

Listserv Assignment

Please have the students use the outposts-l listerv to post a question to another class. You, as the teacher, can refer to the printed list we provided that notes which classes are Islands and which are Backcountry to find a class in your track. Then select a class in your track to write to by looking at the return address on the listserv from one of the other classes previously posted messages. Have the students send them one question taken from their Camp passport and see if they send you back the right answer. This activity should focus on the Native American section of the passport, or the paleontology questions. Check back later in the week and see if they answered you. This is a chance to get the students talking to one another online, sharing information, and challenging each other to learn ! If the class doesn't write back in a few days, use that same printed list to give the other teacher a call to alert them the question is on the listserv waiting for their students to answer. We will do this each week for the rest of the month to build bridges between the classrooms in different locations.

For the Week of October 11th

Social studies moves on this week to the Southern Channel Islands to learn about the Gabrielino who lived on Santa Catalina, San Clemente, and San Nicholas Islands. The amazing thing about these peoples is that they were connected by a similar language-base in a trade network that ran at least from the eastern side of the Sierras, down through the high desert, to the Los Angeles basin, and then out to the islands. Our guest Trail Guide this week is Professor Mark Raab from CSU Northridge who has been studying the trade network and made the discovery of this broad association of villages. As with the Chumash studies the week before, there is plenty of material to choose from on the Gabrielino, and you are welcome to make selections or create study groups.

In the Science track we will begin our study of the Geology of the Backcountry which will last through the end of the month with experts from National Parks sharing their geology resources with us.

For reading, you can continue Ishi, or can visit the Channel Islands Expedition area for reading the source materials that tell the original story about the Lone Woman of San Nicholas Island, whose life story was the basis for the book and film, Island of the Blue Dolphins. If available from your library, the movie might be accessible for viewing on video as well.

The hands-on activity for the week is to use the trade beads the Camp has provided and follow the Trade Challenge posted online. You will need to find some sturdy twine for each student to string their beads on to get started.