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Camp Internet Expedition 6 Science Briefing 5
Last week and this week are a combination of Geography and Oceanography of the Channel. The Oceanography unit delves into the very interesting upwelling and seasonal currents that effect the Channel, bringing marine life down from Alaska and up from Mexico to intermix in a way not known anywhere else in the world. These factors influence marine and terrestrial life - and influence our weather patterns that will be next weeks activity area. You should receive early this week in the mail an Oceanography booklet from our visit to the Sea Center on Stearn's Wharf in Santa Barbara last summer. Also in the mail for many classrooms is the request to arrange a site visit at the end of the month; please let us know if you can host our team for a few hours as described.
This Week's Featured Trail Guides
Ben Waltenberg from the National Marine Sanctuary program, under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and who is an expert in Geographic Information Systems ( GIS ) will be our Trail Guide this week.
He will be online, live, for classes to interact with on Thursday, February 11th, from 9-11am. Please study up on the interesting geography resources presented last week, and prepare some challenging questions for Ben to answer.
New Classes Become Outposts This Week
We are pleased to welcome new classes to the program from schools in Santa Barbara County, thanks to support from the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary Director, Ed Cassano. These six classes will be jumping into the Camp for the science activities, and to take part in the Sustainable Seas Expedition coming our way from the National Geographic Society. The teachers will be joining the list serv, and their classes range from 5th to 9th graders. We will be integrating them into the program as best fits the needs of their classes. A special thanks goes out to Ed Cassano of CINMS, and NOAA, for adding a new county of participants onto the program.
Southern California Site Visits
As we try to coordinate these visits, we are filling up the beginning of the week and have a few spaces open for Thursday afternoon and Friday the 25th and 26th of February. These visits are important to help teachers find ways to integrate the video programming into the class, to help students explore new areas of the online resources, and to give the teachers a voice in expressing what works and what doesn't work for them in applying the Camp program in the classroom. We hope to visit all of you this Spring at least once.
Web Class
Our tentative date for having a Camp staffer on hand in San Bernardino to help you get your classroom web site started is Monday February 22nd, in the afternoon. If you can attend, please let us know at camp@rain.org. or if more people would prefer a class Saturday the 27th, let us know. These sessions will help you contribute a project to the year end Virtual Science and History Fair that takes place on the web site in May.
Happy Valentines Day !!!
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