Teaching Datastreme by using cyber campus sites

After attending the North Carolina Science Teacher's Association Conference in Greensboro, N.C. in November, I received a call from Nancy Allen, who works for the North Carolina School of Science and Math. Nancy had attended a presentation by Rod Gonski on meteorology in which Rod shared Datastreme information with the group.

Nancy had been given a grant at the North Carolina School of Science and Math in which the teachers would participate in a class which would incorporate technology. Nancy was interested in using Datastreme as the course. Since she had not participated in the Datastreme class in the past, we invited her to the last fall meeting in December at the National Weather Service Office in Raleigh. At this meeting, she was able to peruse the course materials.

After looking over the materials and talking with the LIT leaders, we decided to participate in a joint effort with Datastreme and the North Carolina School of Science and Math for the spring semester. The format in which the North Carolina School of Science and Math had planned to follow was to set up cyber-campus sites that the teachers could attend locally. There, they watch the Datastreme class being broadcast from their high schools. studio. After discussing this with Datastreme Central, it was decided to have one face to face in January and the last two meetings by cyber campus sites.Because we wanted the sites to be interactive with the participants, we had to limit the group to the following four sites:

1. A.L. Brown High School, Kannapolis, N.C. (12 participants) 2. Northeastern High School, Elizabeth City, N.C. (5 participants) 3. Allegany High School, Sparta, N.C. (3 participants) 4. Kinston High School, Kinston, N.C. (2 participants)

All the LIT members as well as all the new participants attended the first meeting . Due to the size of the group, we had to move the meeting site from the National Weather Service Office to the State Climate Office. During the morning session, we passed out course materials to new participants, covered lesson one, and toured the National Weather Service Office. After lunch, we moved the meeting to the North Carolina State University Earth Science Building. During this time, Nancy Allen was able to go over activities using graphing calculators.

John White was able to set up a web site for the participants to use during the spring semester. John White and Nancy Allen presented broadcasts from the studio for the last two meetings in which the participants received weather radios along with ten "Studying Weather As It Happens" workbooks. After the last broadcast, we met to discuss the possibility of doing this again for the fall semester. We reviewed things that we mightdo to help make the course better.

After a final discussion among the team members, we concluded that by adding more class meetings, varying the broadcasts, and having all materials mailed to the site would facilitate instruction. Overall the program istself is worthy of continuance.