Wisconsin

Wow… check out Google Mars!  How cool is this!

The late-breaking news just released a few hours ago is that Google has landed on Mars!  Google now links us to the Red Planet via Google Mars!  We now have access to false-color elevation, black and white visual , or infrared imagery of Mars.  You and your students can even check out the "Face" or take a look at the other Mars landing sites, dunes, craters, canyons, mountains, plains, ridges or any of a wealth of "placemarks" provided.   The Google Earth placemarks are hyperlinked to the Arizona State University "Mars Odyssey Mission" web — THEMIS (thermal emission imaging system) where research and development of the mission instrumentation is based.   Check out the details on the Odyssey Mission and invite students to explore Mars today via Google Mars.

I can’t imagine any educator or student not intrigued by "other worlds."  Space exploration is the ultimate adventure!  There’s a special place in my heart for Mars since the days I worked on the Live from Mars elecontronic field trip project with the NASA Quest Team — a great resource for all educators exploring the universe with students.   

• How are you using geospatial resources like Google Earth with your students? 
• Have you planted any geospatial related career seeds in the minds of your students yet? 
• Have you checked out http://www.geospatial21.org/  yet?   What a cool site is this!  Students can explore the technology behind satellite imaging and consider a career path on the leading edge!    Don’t miss the videos online on the Air Force’s Predator and remote sensing!   

Keith Schroeder, Marinette DEN member, and I are plotting and planning a Google Earth-GPS-Geocaching workshop for this summer!  More news to come as the details are flushed out.

What luck!  This week my winter 2006 issue of Drive magazine for Subaru owners arrived in my mailbox.   I drive a Subaru Outback!

Tell me this wasn’t serendipitous (check out Visual Thesaurus if you ever need to check word meaning… I love Visual Thesaurus — it is such a cool tool when you are grappling with finding the right words, doing brainstorming, and just having word fun!). 

Oh, yeah… back to the Drive magazine article.  It just so happens that the featured article for this month is "Geocaching: Treasure Hunting in the 21st Century" and is an excellent overview of the basics of geocaching.  Of course, I decided to pursue permission to share this article with my Wisconsin DEN members and any other DEN educators interested in seeing it as well.    I like to make sure that I abide by copyright and fair use law so I hunted down the 800 number of the Subaru folks, left a message, and lo and behold, I had a call back within a few hours.   It does my heart good to know that the corporate world rates educators and their inquiries highly enough to call back the same day… or even to return my call at all.   :-)   

I explained to Joe Barstys the evolving plans to organize a Wisconsin educators’ Geocaching, Google Earth, GPS and unitedstreaming summer event for Wisconsin DEN members and he was tremendously supportive of acquiring permission for use of the article.      Thanks, Joe! Now Wisconsin DEN members interested in accessing the article can do so my send an email to me and it will be sent via PDF attachment for your reading pleasure.  If you are a DEN member in other locations, just check with your Field Manager as they all have access to the PDF file and can send it along to you along with the proper citation credits:

""Reprinted from Subaru Drive magazine (Winter 2006) with permission from Subaru of America, Inc."

If you have other resources to share on the topic of geocaching, GPS use, Google Earth — post them in the comments section… NOW! (before you forget)

All educators (including myself in this noble group!) need to model respect for copyright and fair use laws and the above is just an example of how willing folks are to help educators gain access to resources which enhance our understanding and our instructional efforts in the classroom.    Hall Davidson, DEN Director, is an expert on copyright and fair use (Check out these awesome resources)and has many excellent resources online here to help us deal with the challenges of understanding copyright ethics in educational settings.

David Warlick’s Landmarks for Schools web tools,  Citation Maker and Permission Request, have always been useful tools promoting respect for intellectual property!  And, check out David’s 2 cents Worth blog and Connect Learning podcast while you visit his site.

Happy treasure hunting, everyone!

Three HOT G’s are on my mind…Geocaching, GPS, and Google Earth!

Fourteen years ago I became very intrigued by "adventure learning." In fact, it was Will Steger’s Polar Expedition and his engaging World School for Adventure Learning (see Story 10)that changed my entire view of the future of education.  Even though my colleague, Mary Baumann - 6th grade language arts educator and I, were connecting with educators from around the world (Japan, Denmark, Germany, France, and all over the US) through a painfully slow 1200 baud modem using gopher (a pretty ugly GUI), our perception of the world changed forever. All of a sudden we were able to explore the Arctic, make new friends around the globe, learn about other cultures and places, take our students along, and do all of this from the convenience of West Salem Middle School.   

Today’s students and teachers can experience a new twist on adventure learning through three G’s that have become hot new tools for today’s 21st century learner.   Geocaching, Google Earth and GPS all have huge potential in helping us open the doors to global & geographical awareness, appreciation for our beautiful Wisconsin environment, physical fitness, and finding new learning treasures and friends. And are any of you NOT life-long learners?   (Geez, I hope no one answered yes!)

DEN Member, Dan King , Onalaska Middle School science teacher and instructional technologist, and I have been tossing around the possibility of a summer 2006 adventure learning symposium focused on the effective integration of each of these tools in the classroom.  The symposium would be offered for graduate level credit (if desired) and would provide the opportunity to learn first hand how to work with GPS units, participate in geocaching (basically a fun treasure hunt), use of Google Earth, tagged digital camera images, and unitedstreaming video clips into a unique lesson plan.  We may also experiment with GPS visualizer which is a free tool that creates maps and profiles from GPS data.  What other tools would you like to master relating to this adventure?

If you are game for a new learning adventure experience or have ideas for designing this evolving symposium, post your input (using the comments form below).   Wisconsin is a great state for geocaching and your content area or grade level really doesn’t matter- there are so many interdisciplinary connections! There were 10 caches and 10 travel bugs already logged on the January on-line log so we know folks geocache even in the dead of winter here in Wisconsin.

Check out Ron Schott’s Geology Home Companion blog and podcasts about integrating Google Earth!   We could have a ton of fun "Googling" the adventures of our own unique Wisconsin travel bugs!

Be creative and help us design our "G3 Adventure!"    All DEN members are welcome to help us design a great G3 Adventure!  I hear some Kansas and Missouri educators are game for a cross country G3 Adventure!