The E-line Archives, Vol. 2, #14

Volume 2, No. 14 21 February, 2003

[To view this newsletter on line:
http://www.emck.net/eline/03_02_21.htm.]

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Ice Storm!

Apologies for the lateness of this edition - we were powerless! (Oops, sorry about the pun!) The images at right are from Lexington - the crushed house at upper right is three blocks from where The Help Desk is produced. Over 75,000 homes were instantly without power after the ice storm passed, and many are still not back on after a week. As many of The Help Desk recipients will attest, severe flooding, high snowfalls, and wind storms contributed to other woes across the state, and have rearranged the schedules of many school districts.

Since The Help Desk has never been one to miss out on a "teachable moment," enclosed you will find some lesson ideas based on weather. Our "Professional Resource" for this issue is a source for inspirational and comforting free posters - and none too soon! Hope it's dry and warm where you are!

On-line lesson planning

Weather.com's The Weather Classroom

http://www.weather.com/education/

One of the terrible ironies of an ice storm is that, with power down, thousands of Weather.Com jockeys were blocked from viewing the incoming fronts on their browsers! Featured as a science area resource in The Help Desk's June 21, 2002 issue, this site includes schedules, lesson plans, and guides for their educational broadcasts, which can be recorded and used free of charge in the classroom.

Content Area Resources

The Arts

KET Arts Toolkits
http://www.ket.org/arts/

In addition to Kentucky Educational Television's usual fine collection of resources (see their middle school page), KET and the Kentucky Department of Education (with other partners) announce the first of their series of Arts Toolkits. This first package, on the dramatic arts, will be shipped in June. Since it includes 2 CDROMs, four hours of videotape, classroom materials, and access to a website which will continue to expand with the project, KET will charge $89 for each toolkit to recoup materials costs. See the KET Arts page linked above for contact information. [editor's note: Both Drama and Dance Toolkits are now available, 7/5/04.]

Mathematics

Graphing the Weather

http://score.kings.k12.ca.us/lessons/graphweather.html

Here's a simple lesson plan from Kings County Schools in California, funded by that state's SCORE - Mathematics project. It's aimed at grades 4-6, but could easily be enhanced for older kids. The site gives links to online weather resources and a printable graph for use in the lesson.

Reading

The National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement

http://cela.albany.edu/

The University of Albany School of Education provides this resource. It is not a great source of lesson plans and other instructional materials - its focus is research. But don't be put off - there's a great article in the current newsletter about the School's Partnership for Literacy collaboration with middle schools. The project is only halfway through its cycle, but has already seen great strides in helping low-achievement readers!

Science

Chain Reaction

http://chainreaction.asu.edu/

Tied to Arizona's science learning standards for grades 4-8, Arizona State University's ChainReaction is a newsletter as well as an online resource with an emphasis on weather. There are teaching ideas, and lots of on-line information on a variety of weather topics.

Social Studies

Weather Complaints

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/08/g35/extremeweather.html

"Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it!" Mark Twain said it, and this lesson plan goes right to the heart of it! Although listed for grades 3-5, this lesson plan - part of National Geographic's XPeditions lesson plan data bank - works quite well for middle school kids as well. Since we've had a lot to complain about, this might give students a good reason to explore what's being done about it!

Writing

Charcoal Clouds and Weather Writing

http://www.ncte.org/pubs/journals/la/articles/108091.htm

This lesson idea, complete with plans and resource citations, is on the National Council of Teachers of English website. Like a lot of resources that make it onto the Internet, it showed up in a Google search, but wasn't linked anywhere on NCTE's own site! It's in PDF format, which includes printable writing prompts and a data collection worksheet. It's cross-curricular, and timely!

Software Sources

Swish 2

http://www.swishzone.com/

Attention, school Website schleppers, computer club sponsors, and multimedia dabblers! OK, so this software is only free for 15 days, but with the price of MacroMedia Flash going over the top (and hard to use, to boot), the $49.95 price of this alternative looks pretty good! Swish 2 produces animations for use on your website which will play using MacroMedia's Flash Web plug-in. That means that finished Swish 2 projects will play on 97% of the browsers out there. There's examples, tutorials, and a whole online community of Swish 2 users!

Professional Resources

P-R Posters

http://www.p-rposters.com/weekly.htm

The link above is to the motivational poster of the week from P-R Posters - Mark and Camille Peltier-Robson, with sons Devin and Dustin, of Beloit, Wisconsin. Their homepage provides links to free printable posters for a variety of settings, including specifically for the classroom. Although this site isn't a heady and research-based source of educational materials, it's a perfect example of the spirit of the open Internet!

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