Thanks to everyone who braved a "chilly" night in Santa Cruz to check out our "Antarctica: Colder than Santa Cruz in the Summer" event.
The crowd watching our slide show- the red shows what areas have been over fished - pretty much everywhere.
We think we had about 80 people with most people staying glued to the big "wall" full of amazing pictures and videos till the very end. Thanks for all the kind words and great support. We had fun sharing our experience with you. I hope nobody eats any Chilean Seabass after watching the sad documentary, The Last Ocean, by John Weller. We'll do our best to get good data while under the ice so we can bring back accurate information so we can all further understand how factors such as climate change affect communities of organisms. We'll also try to do another presentation when we come back with more pictures and videos, and stories about our expedition and what we learned.
The crowd watching our slide show - on the screen you see a person in Antarctica
But first I have 3 weeks to go. During these last weeks, I'll be giving various presentations at schools both in Santa Cruz and over the hill. I've already had lots of fun with kids at Quail Hallow Montessori in Felton, Reed Elementary in San Jose, Sacred Heart in Saratoga, and St. Leo the Great in San Jose.
Who can tell Tina what Antarctica is like?
I'll still be visiting everything from preschools to junior highs and maybe even other college classes. I've got a PowerPoint full of pictures and information or regular old-fashioned printed pictures which I show to help bring Antarctica to life for the kids and to help them see what our research is about. I also show up in my Extreme Cold Weather gear and then I let kids try it on and play with it. We've all loved that part. Lastly I give kids time to ask questions, some of which have really amazed me, and then we start working on the WATER DROP program. Though my time is getting very limited, if you still want me to come to your or your children's schools, let me know by emailing me and I'll see what I can do.
No, we are not going up there. We're going to Antarctica in the South where we will see penguins not polar bears!
I'll also be working with my Cabrillo College English 1A Class. We actually started on Monday and I met with them for my one and only time on Tuesday evening. From now on we'll correspond solely through the Internet; we're using an online course management system called Blackboard. I've posted, and organized into units, all kinds of handouts and exercises on this site to help the students develop their writing skills. I'll be checking all of their work online and I'll also be communicating with them through Blackboard. I actually think that this will really enhance our English 1A class as students will post various versions of their essays and all of the members of the class will be able to see both their classmates' essays and my responses to each of their essays. In an "in-person" class, I never get the luxury of giving each of the 29 students so much individual attention. Yes, we will miss the live discussions and connections but with the online class, everyone will have more time to think about responses and everyone, rather than just a few, will be required to participate in discussions. I've got about 25 online discussions with topics such as "evaluate your proofreading strategies" or "post your outline and have your classmates write three questions about what they want to learn about your essay" or "post your 10-page draft of your essay and have classmates identify 1 weakness, 1 strength, and then 3 appositives in your writing". The discussions, handouts, and links will all help the students develop writing strategies and skills which they will use to write 3 essays, one of which is a 15-18 page report which will be self-published as a class book at the end of the semester. I'll share some of their progress and their essays with you in these journals and hopefully we'll have the book available for you soon after my return. From my brief encounter with them, the students seemed "excited to discover", interested, and willing to do the work.
The students of English 1A - Research in Antarctica
Lastly, I'll be teaching for Santa Cruz Adult School. Somehow our school barely survived a cut of 90% of our budget. The GED/HS diploma program is still around though programs were consolidated; the Parent Education co-ops are still running largely because they raised fees, increased class sizes, and are putting on all kinds of fundraisers; and some ceramics, painting, art, and computer classes are still running though the fees are much higher. In my program, the English as a Second Language (ESL) department, we've had to go from a high of 27 ESL teachers to 13 to 5. We used to have 13 or more ESL classes that ran for 20 hours in the morning and 13 hours at night. Now we're down to 4 ESL classes that run 12 hours in the morning and 3 that run 6 hours in the evening and fees have gone up exorbitantly. One of the saddest part of the butchering of the adult school is that we've lost most of our talented, experienced teachers who devoted their lives and careers to our school. I shake my head with shame at a system that made it so that the wonderful, smart, dedicated teacher who started the ESL program at Santa Cruz Adult School 39 years ago, Peggy Miles, has been fighting to just be able to volunteer to teach her ESL classes because she loves her students that much.
I'll be working with ESL students at Santa Cruz Adult School, helping them gain basic skills to be able to better communicate at work and in the community, and I'll be starting my Computer Literacy 2 class next Wednesday. In the Computer Literacy class I'll be helping adults improve their computer skills. My students will work with me and then with my substitute, Kim Dowling, to learn how to organize bookmarks on the Internet, to create folders and contact lists with email, to use digital cameras and upload, organize, and edit pictures on their computers. They will also incorporate my blog and website into their classes and they will participate in one of our webinars. I'm looking forward to seeing some old students and meeting new ones next Wednesday.
I'm also happy to be working more and more with other members of our ICE AGED team. Paul has connected us to 4-H which will take our WATER DROP program to kids all over California and maybe even the United States. We're working out the details now so that we can participate, from Antarctica, in the 4-H National Youth Science Day on October 6. Julie has promoted us to many, many teachers and principals in Washington and has gotten Paul Cuffee School, Mount Erie Elementary, the Early Learning Center for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and the Anacortes Home Education Partnership involved. DJ has connected us to Buzz Campbell with Oceans Wide and they'll be promoting us at many schools in various parts of the United States. It's all coming together and we're happy to bring as many people along as we possible can!
This is what I'll be wearing down there. Nothing can be left out for the air to freeze.
For those of you following us already, what is the most exciting thing you have learned so far?