Summary of points presented at the June 1997 Meeting

Contents

1. By the end of summer we need to have ready a few Web pages to show to K-12 teachers.
2. What topics should be presented?

Challenges

1. Our material, as currently presented, is not suitable for use in K-12 grades.
2. Teachers are sometimes reluctant to take on extra work. How does our instructional material fit into K-12 curricula? We need to build a "module" that has a coherent, self-contained story (Example: something around soap bubbles?). Another option: consider using our material for students projects, especially in conjuntion with science shows, fairs, musuems, etc.
3. Instructional material already developed for this project will have to be repackaged for K-12 graders.

Contacts

The purpose of making contacts with teachers and K-12 program specialists is to:

1. Present what our project is about
2. Find out what type of instructional material teachers want
3. Arrange for teacher/project-leader collaboration
4. Determine technical constraints for use of prototypes in classrooms
5. Test prototypes in classrooms

Upcoming events:

1. A workshop for high school physics teachers will be held on a Saturday morning in the second half of September. I 'll present the highlights. of the project and some prototypes geared for high school students
2. I am in touch with K-5 program specialists to organize a workshop (sometime in September) in which we present our project and find what the needs of K-5 teachers are.
3. Currenlty our contacts are with K-5 teachers in the Greater Syracuse area; and with 9-12 teachers in a wider regional area, all the way up to Oswego. Invitations to workshops to be held at Syracuse University could be extended to teachers in the Ithaca area, or a sister program of workshops or teacher/project-leader contacts can be initiated in the Ithaca area.

How to contact me:Gianfranco Vidali