Pennsylvania

In my current position, or should I say positions(I wear many hats) I get to see a lot of exciting activities.  In addition to being the Director of Technology Integration for Propel Schools, I am the science coordinator.  I am the SOS or Specialist on Site.  I believe that this was due to my knowledge and experiences that I had through my years of teaching elementary and middle school science in 2 previous jobs.

Our district implements ASSET Science which is an Inquiry-based, hands-on science curriculum.  Many of you may be familiar with the FOSS curriculum which is very similar to Asset. If you do, you know that it is hands-on and comes in a kit.  If you do teach either FOSS or Asset, here is a great resource for you to use. http://www.fossweb.com/ Another component of Asset is the use of Carolina resources in addition to the Foss kits.

While at Propel East, I stopped into a classroom teaching a Catastrophic Events unit. In this unit students investigate the causes and effects of thunderstorms, earthquakes, and volcanic activity. Global heating, the water cycle, plate motion, plate tectonics, magma, ash, and effects on the atmosphere are studied in depth.  On this day, there was no lab, no small groups, no experiments, but rather a very interesting, engaging, and intriguing guest speaker named Mara Falk.

At first glance, Mara seemed like just another guest speaker until she began to tell her stories of being a Storm Chaser with Discovery. She talked about how she had interviewed for a job that just turned out to be an extreme weather show on the Discovery Channel called, “Stormchasers.”  Her stories were captivating, telling how she was the driver of the scout(storm chasing vehicle) and how every second was of such importance.  Watching the student’s engagement while she talked what was interesting to me, as 100% of the children were engaged and posed such great questions for Mara. One story she mentioned was of an elderly man who wanted to wait out a particular storm.  On this particular day, it was not a great idea as the storm was very intense and had started to rip through his house.  Lucky for him, the force of the winds through his house took him to his bathroom where he was thrown into the bathtub with the door forcefully falling on top of the tub.  This miracle in disquise saved this elderly man’s life as his entire house crumbled on top of this bathtub. 

With this said, I cannot believe that our school was fortunate enough to have this guest speaker come to speak to our children. 

Now….here is the cool part.  Since you are reading this, you are probably a teacher who has access to Discovery Streaming.  If you do a keyword seach for Storm Chasers, you will see various videos from the Storm Chasers series as well as other teaching materials you will find useful.

Not that long ago, I found Repower America in my Google Reader and subscribed via emails. This message is the most recent one I received, and as educators, we can see the unlimited opportunities to take this idea of impacting our energy issues to the classroom. If you are concerned with our country developing clean energy, you might be interested in adding your voice and your students’ voices to the Repower America Wall, after, of course, you have investigated some of the wonderful resources from Discovery. Consider using the abundant resources from Discovery Education partnerships: Fuel Our Future Now and Waste Management’s Think Green Classroom.  Don’t forget about a wealth of award-winning resources from Science Elementary or Science Middle School.  And remember to check out the multimedia opportunities you will find in Discovery Streaming/Plus. Even if you are just Getting Started with Discovery Education, Tracey McGrath and Patti Duncan will walk you through the basics from their webinar (see Getting Started link).  And if you could not attend one of the 25 live events for the DEN Virtual Conference, or attend virtually, you can peruse at your leisure the archived webinars for a treasure trove of more ideas.  After you have done all that, you will “discover” you can make a truly informed post to the Repower America Wall.

Here’s an excerpt from the email from Al Gore:

The Wall is a place where literally thousands and thousands of people committed to a revolutionary new energy future for our nation and the world are coming together — to express our hopes, share our resolve, and step up to a leadership role in building a grassroots movement for change like nothing America has ever seen. It’s an opportunity for you to be part of the climate movement in a new way, in a way that takes us beyond ourselves.

By asking people from all over the country to share their thoughts and images on the Wall, we are fueling a campaign that brings together the power of national media with the strength and connection of on-the-ground organizing in a way that no one has ever done before. Your voice, and the voices of your friends, neighbors and colleagues, will become the language of our campaign on TV, in print, on billboards, online, and in brand new ways that you will help us invent as we create the Wall.

We know that the political will to transition America to a clean energy economy already exists. You are part of it. But now we must make sure our leaders know it too. The Wall will become our collective voice and thus transform the debate into action.

It’s an ambitious strategy — and it has to be.

Nothing short of every one of us joined together is needed to overcome the resistance of the powerful special interests blocking our path to a clean energy future, settling for the dangerous status quo.

But the time for politics is over. We have the power to force change in America.