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Channel Islands Teacher Briefing
Week of November 15-19
Did you know that the month of November is National American Indian Heritage Month ? This coming week we are going to be focusing on rock art in our Native Californians section, native legends and myths in our reading section, and we have a new Dig - this time a Rock Art Dig !
This is going to be an especially fun week for everyone - if these rewards have not taken place yet, it is time for the following : the students are due for their first passport stickers for the Native American section and after their activities this week they can be given the arrowheads. The key to the passport is in the Teacher's Base Camp so you can help them complete their section one of the passport correctly. It might work nicely to offer the arrowhead key chains as rewards for completing the Rock Art dig if they have not yet been given out.
Social Studies
We will be sharing Rock Art from the Chumash region, plus a chance to see Backcountry rock art from the Coso area too - and they are beautiful, powerful images. We are honored to have the recent President of the American Rock Art Research Association coming online for a chat that all tracks are invited to schedule an hour to attend, Tuesday November 16th, 9-12noon. Bill Hyder is at UC Santa Cruz and his PhD is in anthropology, specifically rock art. Please RSVP for the hour you can attend by sending confirmation to camp@rain.org.
The Rock Art Dig will be open Wednesday 17th through Friday the 19th. - check the chat room to go on this exciting exploration of California's world famous rock art !
Reading
In the reading section, we continue to add native legends and myths. Please assign your students at least one story each to read this week in celebration of it being National American Indian Heritage Month. Then ask them to draw an illustration of what takes place in the story. This project was extremely popular last year, and the art work was wonderful. Send your best results to us so we can get them online for the Open House at the end of the month please ! Write the student name, grade and school on the reverse and mail to us. Recommended story for illustrations is the Rainbow Bridge story (Chumash).
Science
This week geography moves to GIS studies, and Friday the 19th is National GIS Day. GIS - Geographic Information Systems is a great tool for visualizing data, and will become an important part of the Camp in the months ahead. ESRI in Redlands is working with us to get our own GIS server running, and has provided the CD ROMs and materials being distributed in the teacher training sessions. Expedition GIS Center
Community Nights
This week both Indio Middle and Truman Middle Schools are hosting their open houses to introduce the Camp program to families. We have two more scheduled for early December at other schools, and will work with you to host at least one session this year.
Teacher training
We are sending out invitations and agendas to the teacher training to yourself as a teacher, and to your principal. The Open House invitation is also going out to post in the staff room to invite other teachers to attend. The host teachers are your fellow Outpost Leaders, so please do attend one or both events November 30th or December 1st.
Teacher Stipend
Camp is offering teachers a $75 stipend to put together a tri-fold display of your student's work to date - photos of them at work on the computers and doing hands on, miniature village scenes, etc. can make a lively display. Please confirm if you would like to put a display together - or - have your students create a display. Be creative !