Introduction
This
Week
Classrooms
Field Reports
Student Projects
Field Trips
Chat Room
Media Library
Map
Library
Trail Guides
Schools
Search
Camp Internet
Channel Islands Teacher Briefing
Week of October 25-29
Special Chat - from the HumpBack Whale National Marine Sanctuary - Hawaii - Live - 1 p.m. <br>
Activities to Make Reservations For
Search and Rescue Mission
Starting Wednesday, October 27th, we are hosting an online Island of the Blue Dolphins Search and Rescue Mission to bring The Lone Woman of San Nicolas back to the mainland. This is the last week we will focus on this book and film, and it is important that students read-up on the historical accounts of her rescue that are posted in the Camp's Coyote's Campfire storytelling area. We will use information from that text to navigate through the search and rescue mission, which is an online treasure hunt. We will follow the sailors who discovered signs of her existence, we will help them discover her whale bone home and reed enclosure, and we will watch as they first take her to Santa Cruz Island and then back to Santa Barbara. Please set your calendars to attend this event any time after 10 am on the 27th. The search and rescue mission will conclude on Friday the 29th at noon. Will your class find her ? Will they bring her back to the mainland ?
Professional Development
Reminder : A teacher's professional development class is also being planned for your technology literacy development that will focus on GIS skills and on accessing remote telescope imagery via the Internet. Camp staff are being trained by ESRI on GIS applications in the classrooms, and on inputting star coordinates to generate night sky photographs from the Remote Access Astronomy Project at UC Santa Barbara. They will then train-the-trainers, and send you back into the classroom with some exciting new tools and skills. San Bernardino area classes will meet on Tuesday, December 29th at Truman Middle School in Fontana, and Riverside area schools will meet December 1st at Desert Sands Unified School District. Session will run from 1-4pm, with an Open House for teachers district-wide following from 4-6pm. Come show off your class accomplishments to other teachers !
Listserv Assignment for Students
As was assigned last week, we continue to ask that you have students post a question to a specific classroom that they have selected from their passport in the Native American or Paleontology sections. Here are the instructions again:
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 25-29
Social Studies and Reading
This week we remain in the southern Channel Islands, and continue learning about the life of the Gabrielino / Tongva. The story Island of the Blue Dolphins becomes the focus of the week's lesson activities as her experience on San Nicolas, the search and her rescue, become part of the online learning challenge. We will continue to learn about the Gabrielino way of life, their steatite trade goods, and that they too mastered the seafaring craft of wood plank canoe building.
Science
In geology, this is the week for final projects on a specific island's geology. Please have students share their findings about their adopted island with the class, and we will post any materials you send in preparation for the Nov 29 / Dec. 1 Open Houses. We can scan and post actual drawings, text files of essays can be posted, and photographs or videos of the kids making their presentations can be included in the online coverage of these activities.
Happy Halloween !!
If any of your students attend a school-sponsored Halloween costume contest dressed as Native Americans, Pirates, or other California history figures, please take a photo and send it to us ! We are hosting a Halloween costume contest and will award the best costume prizes after reviewing the costume photographs. Every entry receives a prize, with a grand prize of a special book about the Chumash Rainbow Bridge legend. If you can photograph them, send the photo - with name and school on back - to Camp Internet, PO Box 325 Buellton CA 93427. Announcements of winners will take place in early November.