Keystone Weekly
volume 1, issue 12       January 10, 2000

This week's Key Points: *From the Director's Desk,* *Magnetism Connections,* *Astronomy Connections,* and *Site Visit Update*
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From the Director's Desk

Hope everyone had a most enjoyable holiday and that the things are off to a good start in Year 2000!

Upcoming January 26 Colloquium:
The responses to last week's colloquium mailing are coming in at a good pace and it's looking like we can expect a good turnout. Please forward your response ASAP if you haven't yet done so! If you would like to fax your response, the fax number is (215) 448-1219. Having a good sense of the expected number will greatly assist staff as we finalize details during our 10am planning meeting tomorrow.

The colloquium agenda continues to develop nicely around our topical theme of inquiry classroom practice (including a very interesting new website for teacher professional development) and the sharing of current and emerging efforts by both project teachers and staff. It will be nice to see everyone again and have some good conversation.

Keystone Year 2 Summer Institute:
After exploring a number of possible alternative sites, we have decided that returning to Messiah College makes the most sense. The Year 2 KSN Institute is scheduled to begin late Sunday afternoon, July 23 and conclude 5pm on Thursday, July 27. The science content focus will be on environments, habitats, and ecosystems. This strand aligns well to five science kits cutting across both the life and earth sciences. We feel it represents a nice balance to last year's energy focus in the physical sciences. The relevant kits are: STC's "Animal Studies" and "Ecosystems," FOSS's "Environments" and Insight's "Habitats" and "There Is No Away." More details will be provided at the colloquium and via a forthcoming information packet (containing application materials for five new KSN teachers per site) to be mailed shortly to site liaisons, once a few relevant details are confirmed.

Site visits to continue:
The Nov/Dec site visits were marvelous experiences. They proved quite useful and generated a lot of helpful, follow-up email exchanges among teachers and staff. We will continue scheduling visits in coming months with teachers we have not yet visited. Let us know if there is an especially good day to try for a visit.

Keystone Online development moves into high gear!
As the project moves into Year 2000, we are gearing up for intense development efforts on the project web space. We will share highlights of the emerging development work at the January colloquium and in future issues of "The Weekly." Project teachers are invited and encouraged to actively utilize, critique and contribute to the growing Keystone web space as it appears online in coming months.

New staff member:
Alyce Callison joined the Educational Technology Programs staff last week in the role of Content Support Specialist. Alyce comes to us from the Philadelphia Zoo. Her role will heavily involve her with the Keystone Project and she will be at the January colloquium. Welcome aboard Alyce!

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Magnetism Connections

Investigations by first grade students need to be focused on basic materials and simple concepts. Whenever possible, the science topic should have some connections to the reading program so that additional time for processing the concepts may be attained.

The following ideas are offered as enrichments for a first grade inquiry on magnetism. Teachers who want to gather a supply of iron fillings to use for further investigations about magnetic poles may want their students to do the collecting by using the process described in the site listed below. If teachers would rather keep the children from sifting through the soil they might want to make a sand box available during recess or during designated "outside work" time (even a bucket of beach sand will do). The students can separate the iron fillings from the sand or soil by using a permanent magnet. It's best to put the magnet in a zippered clear baggie to avoid the clinging dust. The children can deposit the "stuff that sticks" into another larger zipper bag. The collected ore can be used effectively for classroom explorations.

For teacher background information about this type of exercise, as well as resources (including where to order magnets), try this website:
http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/magnets/magnets.html# magnetism

Another possibility for interdisciplinary work is to offer a "magnet poetry" opportunity to the children in the classroom. Students can create poetry (perhaps about magnetism?) while using magnets in a very fun way. Teachers or parent helpers can make the "magnet-words" by using material purchased from a craft store and/or Radio Shack.

Pre-made poetry magnets can be ordered from this website:
http://cmp1.ucr.edu/museum_store/Magpoetry.html

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Astronomy Connections

The following article is courtesy of an e-mail we received from Deanna Wilkinson of the West Chester Area School District:

For 8th grade at Stetson we will be using SEPUP modules - Solutions and Pollution and Toxic Waste. Pam and I recently attended a LASER K-8 Science Education Showcase at Rider University...and we are anxiously awaiting the publication of several of the "promised" kits. Middle school seems to be the poor stepchild in the development process.

However, in an astronomy unit in which my students have been involved for almost two months now, we used the Internet very effectively to research information about a constellation. Students had to "design" a 3-D constellation showing the variables of light year, magnitude and stellar class in their models. Additionally, they also had to know something about the myth associated with their constellation.

Two dynamite websites: http://www.dibonsmith.com and http://www.seds.org. The latter also has some excellent links.

Students were very excited about what they could find on the Internet and we had a running list of "new" websites posted in the room. The challenge was getting them to effectively chart the needed information that they found so they could evaluate it to build their model. This was a valuable learning experience for all of us.

Great assessment question in addition to the model itself: If time was Not an issue and you could visit your constellation, what would you find?

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Site Visit Update

Keystone Online features a new section this week that provides current information about the classroom practices of KSN Teachers. "Inside the Classroom: Site Visit Journal" contains descriptive essays accompanied by photos that recount staff observations made in the field during the school visits. This field journal allows the KSN membership to get a snapshot view of science teaching among its peer group.

Imbedded within the journal's writings are photos to assist in the visualization of specific details. While this brief look inside each classroom does not give an in-depth analysis of any teacher's practice, it does give opportunity for information, tips, questions and discussions about the application of science and related kits.

The final section of each journal entry will contain website connections that are specifically related to either the science kit or the activity featured during the site visit. This section invites not only those teachers currently using the kit but also all members to link with the sites. After journeying inside the classroom and then following the web connections each teacher may then begin to develop a solid understanding of other's investigations. Through this type of online inquiry we can all aspire to refining our own sophisticated kit practices and implementing a search image for our relevant kit connections.

Available later this week: Kerry Warner and Diane Butzer of Lancaster School District. Be sure to visit the website at: http://www.keystone.fi.edu/visits

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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