Lifelines PLC Meeting Notes – Global Systems Science

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Professional Learning Community Leaders’ Meeting notes from
Lifelines for High School Climate Change Education (LHSCCE)

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

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2010

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2010-08-25 • 2010-08-27 • 2010-09-07 • 2010-10-07
2010-10-12 • 2010-10-18 • 2010-11-02 • 2010-12-07

8/25/2010 1:00PM PST Meeting Notes

AGENDA
1. Overview of goals
2. Brief introductions
3. Ideas for better communication
4. How to recruit people
5. NASA evaluations
6. GSS & GEMS
7. Questions

1. Overview (1:41)

Alan: You are going to be a leader for a group of people in your area, probably not to exceed 15.

Two main goals:
– To share ideas about how to teach climate change in high school classrooms
– To have distance professional learning experiences that are highly effective

2. Introductions (1:43) [See also the individual teacher pages]

Alan: What is your name, where are you from, and how did you find out about this program?

[Teacher leaders]
Michael Benjamin: Roger Bacon high school, Cincinnati, OH. NSTA website
Gary Bent: Smith High, CT talk at NSCA
David Bydlowski: Wayne RESA. Wayne, MI. e-mail list
Cris Dewolf: Chippewa Hills High School, Remus, MI. Through a MESTA colleague, via our listserv.
Don Duggan-Haas: The Paleontological Research Institution & its Museum of the Earth. Ithaca & Amherst, NY
John Giacobbe: not present
Billy Goodman: New Jersey School. Through GSS
Jennifer Harold-Muller: GSS e-mails
Fran Hess: New York NSTA
Aleathea Langone: not present
Jim McDonald: Michigan. Atlas grant
Charlene Olson: 100mi West of Phoenix, AZ. google search
Andre Pineda: not present
Marc Reif: not present
william richards: not present
Sheila Scanlan: not present
emily sherman: maine
john shribbs: casa grande high school petaluma, gss conference
michael tally: no
eric walters: NY. NSTA. JPL image processing with billy goodman
marsha powell: iowa. modeling listserve

[LHS Staff]
john erickson: GEMS
Erica Friesen: GEMS
Laura Tucker: GEMS is pre-8 GSS is 9-12. Port Townsend, WA
Traci Wierman: GEMS
Ardice Hartry – Project evaluator
Shirley Lee – Project evaluater
Angela Miller – Staff/notetaker
Fiona Potter – Staff/notetaker

Alan:
Our goal is to establish professional development in each of our areas
We can invite climate scientists to give talks in our learning communities.
We must first establish our learning communities and figure out how to communicate.

3. Communication (1:58)

Alan: I thought Skype would work but I had a horrific experience today. Any ideas for better communication?
Marsha: WIGGIO – program with a conference call and chat room
Traci: Elluminate interface, but fee is required.
Don: I’ve used Skype for 10 people. Also dimdum.com lets you see what’s on other people’s computer screens. It is free.
Gary: ucsa.org (Union of Concerned Scientists). jensideris??

4. How to recruit people.

Alan: To recruit these leaders, I made a google document that you can publish online as an application form. Within your own areas, there may be other ways to recruit people.
Gary: Is this limited to science teachers? There are faculty in his school who are in other disciplines who are interested in this subject. Talk about politics
Dave Lebow: recruiting 15 teachers with stage 1 of a climate change grant. Recruiting teachers, about 15, through a climate change grant. High school starts in 8th grade in Michigan
[2:09 notetakers’ phone ran out of batteries]
…
Charlene: Rural high schools are in the middle of nowhere. this would be a wonderful program to jumpstart in their school
Alan: this means reducing our energy use as much as possible. meaning no travel.
Gary: Is there anyone else in CT? I am close to the RI border. What area range makes sense for the project?
Alan: we are probably going to reach about 300 teachers
Jim?: Chris Dewolf and I are 20 mi apart.
Chris DeWolf: i am already a leader. we have magnetometers from Space Sciences Center
John: I am starting with the Bay Area, trying to keep it down to 15, we are working on the Cayce (sic?) system, Green and environmental communities. I am a part of small groups in the Country that we can start reaching out to. Like California Science Teacher’s Association. When we get a group, what are the goals we want to accomplish besides building a learning community? We could have long lists of sharing. Can make an even bigger website for sharing resources among PLC teachers.
Alan: John shared some downloads on his Leaders page. We can facilitate the organization of volunteers, or teachers who want to be a leader without pay. There is a $100/teacher, $500/leader budget
Fran: We are just modeling it. We need a facility that involves sound so we can talk to one another. We should have a group where everyone contributes.
Gary: We can table and advertise at conferences.
Charlene: I am focusing on rural communities.
Alan: I’ll be at the 2011 NSTA conference is in San Francisco, so maybe we can get a meeting room for a couple of hours. That’s a great idea.
Laura: Virtual face-to-face contact. Look on the leaders page and Connect on Skype with only two or three people, so that you can see each other face-to-face.
Fran: find some grants to bring some leaders together?
Alan: Had nice experiences meeting each of you individually on Skype. You can’t do more than a 2-way video conference on Skype.
Don: – DimDim might make it possible to do video with more than one person
John: iVisit.org can handle up to 8 videos in a conference. I’ve found groups of 4 or 5 tend to be effective.
Traci: is there an application form for people who want to join?
Alan: We got some members from the original Google Doc. Some people didn’t want to be leaders, only members of groups, so we will put those people into the appropriate groups. I could share that application document?
Traci – Do we need a screening process to get good participants. Take context of geog into recruiting strategies
David: resa.net/climatechange. Look here to see the way that RESA is recruiting teachers for this grant. Adobe Acrobat product?
Marsha: I’ve used this Acrobat product with mixed success. Wiggo – 100 members, group e-mails, etc. http://wiggio.com/
Jennifer – Has a tech friend who can help set up conferencing. For leader group. Includes audio.
Fran – Wants to learn what she can do that she can also do with her group.
Alan – Each school district might have tools to use for communicating
Fran – These could also benefit students because teachers can teach them about these technologies.
Alan: Does anyone feel like they don’t have any means for recruiting?? We are here to help if you have any issues or want any help in recruiting. We can do that offline or through email.
Traci: GEMS website has lists of sites and centers around the country. http://lawrencehallofscience.org/gems/
Laura – Where can staff add information?
Alan – Workspace for staff and advisers. Get the link from the name tag page.
Jennifer – It would be possible to set up the communications for everyone

5. NASA evaluations (2:39)

Alan: NASA has requirements for reporting. Every time we have a meeting, all of us should take a few minutes to jot down a reflection on the meeting, a few sentences to a few paragraphs. This might give us a good basis for evaluation. Perhaps you can post it on your leader page? Ardice and Shirley have more info
Ardice: We would like some feedback about how the meeting went, how it could improve, etc (Questions to think about: 1)What did I expect to get? 2) What did I get? 3) What could have improved it? 4) Anything else?). We want to capture how a professional learning community is being built among the leaders. I will post more examples. You can also post privately. There will be interviews and surveys throughout the year for leaders. Other participants will also have to complete NASA surveys.We are also trying to have a catalogue of instruments that you or your teachers might find interesting. For example, a climate literacy survey. Feel free to e-mail me with any questions about evaluations.

6. GSS & GEMS (2:45)

Alan: Global Systems Science is an integrated interdisciplinary approach designed for high school science classes. It is partially available for free online. This is the electronic age of curriculum materials. We are giving out the licenses to all the teachers to use these materials at their schools, in addition to other materials. I will e-mail out a login and password for GSS and give you all of the books for free in PDF. [See a sample here: http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/sb/climatechange.html]
John: idea: make this into an e-book format.
Alan – Wants to make it ultimately in a shareware format where it will free.

7. Questions (2:51)

____: Is there a time frame to establish a PLC cadre? Do you want a list of teachers?
Alan: We have all of fall to do our recruiting. If you reach the right number of teachers there is no reason why you shouldn’t start having meetings. It should start in early January 2011.
John: Is it possible to include teachers in other disciplines? They might want to include the climate change themes in their classrooms? Could have teams of teachers from across disciplines. Is it possible for teachers to team up?
Alan: Yes, it is highly desirable.
Dave: Is it a problem that high school science starts in 8th grade?
Alan: As long as it is high school, it’s okay for the grant
Emily: What are we going to be doing in the PLCs? What resources are available to us?
Alan: Part of the goal of this project is to collect resources that we find very useful. We don’t want it to get too unwieldily/suggest resources that haven’t been tested.
Gary: I teach a 2-week unit on climate change as part of my physics course, I will try to put up my powerpoints.
Laura: Is there a limit to how many resources we can upload?
Alan: Yes
___: But we can purchase more space.
___: Be careful with the capacity for pictures and video.
Gary: you can upload powerpoints at slideshare.net for free
Fran: Can NASA support our project with webspace/storage?
Alan: NASA has a climate change site and they are very interested in this project and willing to help.
Gary: Volunteers to investigate Slideshare in the next few weeks
Charlene: How do you integrate global warming into your advanced physics class?
Gary: Stephan-Boltzmann law used to calculate the temperature of the earth.
Charlene: Arizona
Dave – Need a space to put curriculum correlations, especially for teachers in the same state
Alan – Yes. It is possible for any of the PLC leaders to edit the site and add that in. GSS also has an ongoing project about correlating GSS to state standards. By the time we get done with that, the new national standards will be implemented.
Traci – Can we forward the grant proposal out? We would like some more information about expectations of the project. Some language from the recruitment flyer would be very helpful.
Alan – Yes, but it can also be refined within the course of the project.
Emily – Can we have some clarification about what is going on for the PLCs and how to recruit?
Alan – There is some structural info in the original flier. The exact schedule of what we want to do is yet to be determined. Meetings should contribute towards the effective teaching of climate change in high school classrooms. There is no course only on climate change, it must expand to the subject area of the course in which climate change will be applied. This is a stepping stone among teachers who have a common interest.
Don: National Research Council is working on new Standards Framework, and climate change has gained a considerable amount of recognition.
Gary: Energy, Environment, and Climate by Richard Wilson covers the subject of climate change very well.

Meeting Adjourned (3:10)

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2010-08-25 • 2010-08-27 • 2010-09-07 • 2010-10-07
2010-10-12 • 2010-10-18 • 2010-11-02 • 2010-12-07

8/27/2010 3:00PM PST Meeting Notes

AGENDA
1. Brief introductions
2. How to recruit people
3. NASA evaluations
4. Questions

Sheila Scanlan
Michael Tally
Alan Gould
Fiona Potter (notetaker)

Brief Introductions (2:58)

Alan: Each of you will be leaders in your PLC in your area. We’ll talk about what this means and what the project is about. Other group meeting had problems with Skype. Today we are off to a good star. We also will be looking at different options.
Introductions:
Sheila: In 19th year of teaching in Gilbert, Arizona. Was an agricultural entomologist previously. Then changed to education. Interested in the environment. Teach college/AP classes. Built up a curriculum for district and a curriculum for the APES classes in the district. Big program at school. Passionate about climate change and climate change education. Passionate about incorporating the fundamentals into classes. Found out about Lifelines through email. Very involved in 350 last year and campaigned for CFLs. Like targeted envir’tal ed in classroom and then integrate throughout curriculum
Michael: Work in Raleigh, NC. Science director in a large school district. Been a pilot site for CLEP (sic?) modules. Experience with PLCs in district.
Alan: I wrote the grant proposal and we are funded through NASA. You can refer to our old notes for other bios
Fiona: I am undergrad student worker and I am taking notes. I will update the notes during the meeting.
Alan: Have either of you had experience working with Google Sites?
Michael: I have not
Sheila: I have worked with Google Docs
Alan: We are trying to model with our site what we can do with the PLCs. Everyone can add and edit things on the website, although two people should simultaneously try to edit the same page at the same time

Ideas for How to Recruit People (3:10)

Michael: WE currently have PLCs within our high schools. Teachers in the same discipline meet periodically. Don’t think it will be hard to get teachers involved in this project. Also, the topic (climate change ed) will fit in well with our schools’ grad requirements
Sheila: I’m going to work with teachers and try to come up with 15
ALan: 15 is probably the limit. Something that we have been talking about is what is a good number. We had 20 people at the last meeting and everyone was able to participate. But even so, some people thought it might be better to have a smaller group. Some even suggested breaking the 15 into smaller groups. In terms of funding the project, we have money to pay each of you $500/year as leaders, and the other members of $100/year. Kind of a pittance. Another issue that has come up is what to do if more people want to be involved. We can do this and set up more PLCs who will work without pay. Also possible for non-science teachers to get involved.
One of the primary goals that I forgot to mention: How to best teach climate change in science classrooms.
Secondary goal is how to set up very excellent and efficient communication within a PLC.
Michael, what kinds of experience have you had with this?
Michael: We have meetings with PLCs and the teachers come to a central location. Sometimes we use Blackboard to post and share things. There is a system of leaders where teachers go back and met with teachers in their own schools. It is a large system.
Alan: We want to know what will happen with meetings in this modality [phone/internet teleconferencing]. This way we can save travel time, the environment/etc.
Back to the idea of Google Docs, someone just told me how to create a spreadsheet that can be published as a form. And the data that goes into that form goes into that spreadsheet. It’s pretty neat. We might be able to use that as a recruitment tool. I can put up instructions. It is free and user friendly.
Sheila: We have a complicated firewall at our school; will we be able to use the form?
Alan: If you have been able to access the GoogleSite, you will probably be okay
Sheila: What about Skype?
Alan: That may be a problem. It may be a problem in some schools but not necessarily. It will be something that we will deal with when it comes up. We can report our problems and solutions in the grant.
At the other meeting, we were working with some GEMS (Great Explorations in Math and Science) educators They create teacher guides and hands-on activities for elementary and middle schools, but haven’t really broken into HS. My project, GSS (Global Systems Science) is for high schools. In our PLCs , we’ll be looking at resources that we can use in the classroom. We want to find the best possible ones. GSS has a climate change book, an integrated curriculum that is based on climate change. You can look at a link on my leader page . Many of the chapters are downloadable for free as PDFs. They are designed as reading materials for students and also have investigations. There is a license for students to use it. It is designed to be textbook free because more and more students are able to access a computer at home. In this project, for all of the leaders and teachers we have funding for the license fee for all of the teachers and leaders and their students. I will send out the log-in and password to the leaders.
Can we try another button… the share function? I have not tried it but I am going to share my desktop with you. I hope this doesn’t end the call!
Sheila: I don’t see anything
Alan: That could be something to look at as coming in handy.
Sheila: Try the down arrow.
Alan: That still doesn’t work but I will look into it more. There is one more agenda before questions: evaluations.

Evaluations (3:28)

Alan: The evaluator is not in on this call, but we have obligations to NASA that we want you to participate in. We hope to make this simple. Whenever there is a meeting, take a few minutes to jot down reflections on this meeting, what you got out of it. You could even do it on your leaders page so that it will be there for other to people to see. [Note-taker note: The evaluators, Ardice Hartry and Shirley Lee, will post more detailed information on the “Photo Name Tags” page]
Sheila: Should I write right on the page? I already have some information there.
Alan: You can do that or you can create another subpage, a heirarchy, for your reflections. Ask me if you need help because I am the site administrator. On the horizon, NASA will have a system for collecting eval info. So has long as you already have the information you need it should be easy to enter it into this system. Maybe a form to send in once a year

Questions (3:31)

Sheila: I’m looking at the Leaders’ page. Do I have to log in?
Alan: You do have to sign in. I have created two new pages: “Google Site How To” and “Skype.” They address issues that other people other people have had. I think a new Skype rule should be wait for the moderator to call you [to initiate a conference]. This meeting today is very encouraing
Sheila: A while back, at the Arizona Assoc for Envirn’l Ed we used something to share powerpoint slides and teleconferences. There were buttons to raise your hand or applaud.
Alan: I am aware of other systems, but many cost money. UC has an account with ReadyTalk and we might try this out. We might have some money to pay for that. We are on the lookout for free ways. And there may be school districts that already have something.
Sheila: Where can I chat to request to talk?
Alan: I will start typing here. Is something coming up?
… [figuring out the chat window]
Alan: This can be valuable for a larger group. Sometimes people will try to talk over eachother. We are not having problems with this smaller group. Using the chat window was a facilitation idea I had.
Michael: Are we going to develope this site for the teachers and have resources for them?
Alan: There are two goals: teaching climate change effectively and establishing the best possible communication among teachers. Along with that, we will be collecting resources. This may be different from state to state, based on standards. We may have one big central pool. It could be on this website or it could be that you start your own PLC website to share resources. We’ll see how it evolves. We plan to have climate scientist/expert speakers talk to leaders and teachers about what they do. I have some of these lined up. I am aware that not everyone will be available for each one; one idea is that those who use a power point, it could be an audio enhanced powerpoint.   It would be a movie. This could be inconvenient. It might be valuable to have the powerpoint with audio on each slide.   I would like to document and archive our talks. We can experiment.
Sheila: Question–regarding the groups. I have talked to the people involved, but what else can I tell them about how to get involved. Is there something that is more substantive that you can do?
Alan:
Sheila: We will travel and we could use Skype
Alan: If the teachers are from different schools. You could do intros if the teachers don’t know each other
Sheila: So in the first meeting we can test the media. Do you have an application that teachers can fill out?
Alan: Next week I will make a new form and instruction about how Leaders can make their own forms.
Sheila: SSNs? Do we have to collect them?
Alan: We can get that information from them. You don’t have to do it and our staff can collect the data over the phone.
Sheila: Testing meeting, talking about goals.. Is there a time frame for the PLCs?
Alan: The grant timeline aims to have PLCs ready to start meetings in early in 2011. January. So you will have Fall to recruit.
Sheila: Do you have a text that we can send to colleagues or something that I can refer to when I make my own letter?
Alan: On the GSS website, there is a flier. I will make a new flier because now we are past the recuitment of leaders [so some of the information on the old flier isn’t relevant].
Sheila: Are there intermediary goals? It won’t take long for me to set the group up.
Alan: We don’t need to have too many meetings. You don’t have to meet a lot before January although you can. Maybe I can check in with you in a month.
Sheila: What will we do before January?
Alan: Recruiting. You can be talking among your teachers about what you want to do. We all know that climate change is not its own subject—we will have to blend the topic into other courses. I’m interested in having a way for teachers to communicate with each other. You can communicate about things other than climate change, too
Sheila: So creating professional learning communities is also a goal?
Alan: Yes, a central goal
Sheila: Will the teachers also have pages on the Google Site?
Alan: I encourage you to have your own site
Sheila: That sounds like a lot
Alan: I assure you it’s easy. Like creating a page on the site. And I will put up instructions
Sheila: That would be helpful. So you are looking for active communication and collaboration about climate change education
Alan: Yes. The hidden agendas: have teachers talk to each other and to have people use GSS
Sheila: How this work for Michael (who is working in a much bigger district)?
Michael: since we have thirty high schools, we may have the teachers go back as leaders to the teachers at their schools. It will probably take off and branch out through the county and maybe the state.
Allen: So your team of 15 will also be leaders, who will not be paid as leaders.

Conclusion (3:56)

Alan: we’re done. great meeting

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2010-08-25 • 2010-08-27 • 2010-09-07 • 2010-10-07
2010-10-12 • 2010-10-18 • 2010-11-02 • 2010-12-07

9/7/2010 Meeting Notes
Present: Andre Pineda, Marc Reif, Marlene Zappia, William Richards, Alan Gould

AGENDA
1. Overview of goals
2. Brief introductions
3. Ideas for better communication
4. How to recruit people
5. NASA evaluations
6. GSS & GEMS
7. Questions

[Alan taking notes] We did not have a designated note-taker other than Alan and he was leading the call and talking alot.
So this is clearly an issue—it’s great to have a note-taker. Alan suggested having members take turns being note-takers, but he failed to implement that idea in this meeting. So notes are necessarily skimpy.

1. Goals: To share ideas about how to most effectively incorporate climate change in high school classes. To have professional learning communities of teachers meeting by “tele-meetings” that are as effective as possible. To have professional development sessions where climate scientists can give talks to member teachers.

2. Introductions. Alan is project director, wrote the grant to NASA that resulted in this project. Andre Pineda is from Arizona. Marc Reif is from Fayetteville AR. Marlene Zappia is recently moved to Kentucky. William Richards is from Arizona. Some leaders learned about the project through Modeling project e-mail and others learned about the project through a flier—third hand.

3. Any experiences with meeting venues/communication systems other than Skype and Google Sites? One participant had been to meetings with Adobe meeting program. Will check into what the cost of that is. Alan said that we may be trying DimDim for next meeting—it’s free and can allow for desktop sharing (speaker can show ppt slides or other files from their computer).

4. Recruitment issues. Andre already has full complement of teachers recurited! Others are well on the road (to varying extents.

5. Evaluation: NASA has requirements for eval. For now, each meeting,participants should take a few minutes to jot down on their leaders page or new “reflections” page under the leaders page, reflections on the meeting. The project evaluators (Ardice and Shirley will be sending out survey to some feedback for the project)

6. GSS & GEMS (2:45)

GEMS is Great Explorations in Math and Science and has a nation-wide network of sites and centers. Although it’s mostly a project for elementary and middle school taechers, some of the sites serve high schools. Alan is director of Global Systems Science which is an integrated interdisciplinary approach designed for high school science classes. The books are on topics based on societal issues requiring science for full understanding and many chapter are available for free online. We are giving out the licenses to all the teachers to use th7ese materials at their schools, in addition to other materials. URL, login and password for GSS was already sent out to all the leaders.

7. Questions. Will the PLC leaders get material from Berkeley and then give that out to the PLC members? A: Berkeley staff will certainly help in any way possible, but the project looks to each PLC to have discussions about how best to go about implementing climate change education in it’s own circumstances.

Frequency of meetings—minimum of 6/yr. We’ll probably start out one/mo and decrease frequency as needed.

Next meeting we’ll like try Dim Dim

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2010-08-25 • 2010-08-27 • 2010-09-07 • 2010-10-07
2010-10-12 • 2010-10-18 • 2010-11-02 • 2010-12-07

10/7/2010 Meeting Notes
1. Group note-taking experiment

Three people, logged in: Don, Billy, Alan.
Billy thinks this is not all that good. Don is skeptical. Marlene: Interesting to see how it plays out.

Billy taking notes now: group note-taking tabled for now.

2. Recruitment progress – Example recruitment Google spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets0.google.com/ccc?key=t3ttZlZCSlu1PNCTVrRU7tg&hl=en#gid=0

David now has full complement of teachers. Has grant (NASA) on climate change and remote sensing. Had to select teachers for that project, so those teachers will be part of the Lifelines group. 6 dates of face-to-face meetings. For Lifelines group, Don thinks better to have dates for group meetings set in advance, so people will know when signing up. May lose people, but get commitment up front. Alan: see Google Spreadsheet, a recruitment device (in this case, meeting schedule).

Link for Don’s form: https://spreadsheets1.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dFNLM0I0MmJMcURQVk00T1lnaWU5Zmc6MQ#gid=0

Don plans to add to his form something about planned meeting times.

3. Strategies for scheduling meetings – Link to Google Spreadsheet

Spreadsheet as tool for scheduling meetings. Can times be entered onto a form, so potential participants can enter their best times? Other techniques:

Google calendar, Doodle. They are for finding specific meeting times. The spreadsheet is more generic, for finding general times.

4. Getting ready for next meeting, using DimDim – http://www.dimdim.com/

Plan is to use this for next meeting. Only group leader needs to download, says Don. Can use to conference, to broadcast computer screen as a webpage. Don, Alan plan to test this. Next meeting ???. Monthly may be good to check in. Next would be late October or early November.

5. Share high school climate change education ideas and resources
Article about DOD in NY Times http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/uptodate/9eu/9eu_9.html

Dave: when look at resources, there are many, get huge list. Can get unmanageable. I assume we’ll use Google Sites to manage. Big thing: how manage numbers to there aren’t too many? How can people figure out how to use a few things or few strategies in the classroom?

Don: Can we group the resources to make them more useful? In a group, lots of diversity, so need resources at various levels. If each learning community comes up with a list of resources, pay attention to ones on multiple lists.

Delicious: site for organizing bookmarks. Can use it to retrieve bookmarks from any computer. But also can make the bookmarks public.

Facebook as a possibility? Alan skeptical. Others use to keep in touch with students, or to have groups keep in touch.

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2010-08-25 • 2010-08-27 • 2010-09-07 • 2010-10-07
2010-10-12 • 2010-10-18 • 2010-11-02 • 2010-12-07

10/12/2010 Meeting Notes

0. Attendees: Alan Gould, Jim McDonald, Sheila Scanlon, Fran Hess, Jim Callahan, William Richards, Jennifer Harold, Eric Walters, Emily Sherman, Ardice Hartry, Shirly Lee, Mike Benjamin, John Shribbs, Cris DeWolf

1. Group note-taking

Alan asked for volunteers to take notes for particular agenda items, so no one person would be responsible for taking all notes.

2. Recruitment progress (Notes by Jim M) – Example recruitment Google spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets0.google.com/ccc?key=t3ttZlZCSlu1PNCTVrRU7tg&hl=en#gid=0

One of the critical things is recruitment. There is the example spreadsheet below. Most of you might have seen it before. It is a spreadsheet and you can right click on it opening it in a new window. You can customize it for your own purposes.

Don Duggan-Haas has his on example page. If you scroll all the way to the bottom you will see some possible meeting times. It can go a long way to letting people know when you will be meeting. However you might leave some people out.

Online form generated by and feeding to the spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDN0dFpsWkNTbHUxUE5DVFZyUlU3dGc6MQ

2011

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

1/4/2011 Meeting Notes
Attendees: [sign in?] Alan Gould, Billy Goodman, Fran Hess, Cris DeWolf, Emily Sherman, Ardice Hartry, David Bydlowski, Gary Bent, Jim McDonald, Laura Tucker, Marcia Powell, Michael Tally, Shirley Lee, John Shribbs, John Erickson, Andre Pineda

1. New PLC applicants: sorting and assigning
There have been a number of applicants that have come in through the project-wide application form (linked at http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/lifelines/). Alan has been working at making the connections for all those applicants to join PLCs. It’s very important for us to know how many confirmed participants you have, so we know if you might be willing to accept additional members, or if we need to start new PLCs. Here are 2 To-Do items for all Lifelines Leader to do right now (or in the next day or so):
(a) put the current number of confirmed members you have on the “Recruitment” page (https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelines/recruiting-flier) and
(b) put a list of the names of your confirmed members on your Lifelines Leader page, so we can tell if a teacher on the applicant list is already committed/accepted to a PLC.
You can update these numbers/names as needed if your PLC grows.

2. Using ReadyTalk for meetings; organizing windows and sharing desktops. Tips:
Arrange your windows with care. You can have your browser take up most of the screen, but leave some space for something else, e.g. a small note-taking document or the participant list.

When you log in as Presenter (Leader), the system will ask to access your computer and you need to grant that access.  Then
(a) the Conference Center will appear in your browser. Click the button that says “Open Meeting Controls.”
(b) In your browser there will be a new browser window that opens that is called “ReadyTalk Loader” and will have the warning “Your meeting will end if you close this window, refresh this page, or click Back or Forward.” Do not close that window until the meeting is over—-it’s OK to cover it over with other windows.
(c) Finally a new application will open called “ConferenceControls” and there will be an application window SEPARATE from your browser application window. The Name of the separate application is ReadyTalk Conference Controls.
(d) In the Conference Controls, click the Green “Start Meeting” button in the upper left to start the meeting for everyone who logs in.   Conference Controls also has an icon at the top that looks like a blue computer screen: Share Desktop. That’s the button to push if you want to share your desktop. When you do that, a set of small conference control icons will appear at the top of your screen that allow you to do things like show the participant list. The leftmost green arrow icon is the one to click to STOP sharing your desktop. If you want to let someone else share their desktop, you can click on their name in the participant list and choose “Promote to Co-Presenter”. Then after a little startup time, their computer will have the “Share Desktop” capability
If at some point you arrive back at the “Conference Center” page again (step a), don’t click the Open Meeting Controls again. You can simply go to another web page or go to “ConferenceControls” application and do what you need to from there.

Bydlowski had some difficulty–it would not work for him today. Fran got it to work for two meetings. Not without some hiccups, but is getting the hang of it.
It’s important to practice using the meeting software.
Marcia used wiggio — has chat room, calendar, ….

3. “New” resources for teachers
David Bydlowski has on his Leader page some excellent resources including smart phone apps and rss feeds.
New on our Resources page:
Climate Literacy Network members meet once per week by telecon. Also the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) – http://cleanet.org/ – has reviewed collection of educational resources aimed at building students’ understanding of core ideas in climate and energy science.

4. Open-ended discussion
Emily: What to do with first meeting?
—Get through technical issues is .
—Practice technology before meeting.
—Bydlowski: 3 topics
–focus on curriculum
–climate change
–remote sensing
Fran: have people get familiar with each other.
People are sharing their own work.
Each teacher has his/her own page to share things on.
There is wish list page…what would you like to have?

John: when we get our listing of top-notch resources, we should put it on a page/site that can be very easily accessed and would be high up in a Google search.

New features on this site:
ReadyTalk signup page (https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelines/readytalk). When you have a meeting date set and you want to use ReadyTalk, sign up on the ReadyTalk signup page. Phone number and access number are same as the one we are using for Leaders meetings. To be the Leader for your PLC, ask Alan for the 4-digit pin that you need for Leader/presenter login.

Presentations page (https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelines/presentations). We are planning to have presenters speak — NOAA and NASA scientists as well as educators presenting about curriculum materials and resources. We will have every presentation archived with “audio-enhanced ppts” with the speaker’s voice embedded on each slide.

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

2/1/2011 Lifelines Leaders Meeting Notes
Attending: Cris DeWolf, David Bydlowski, Fran Hess, Gary Bent, Patti Cook, Sheil Scanlan, Don Duggan-Haas, Alan Gould, Traci Wierman, Erica Barrueto, Ardice Hartry, Emily Sherman, John Erickson Corrected the spelling of my name.

Recording of meeting is posted at
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/lifelines/archive/

Pre-agenda question:
Sheila: Is there data that links the unusual weather events we’ve seen to climate change?
Alan: Good question—we need to be aware of difference between weather and climate.
From Dave’s page: People are asking how these winter storms are impacted by climate change. A nice description is provided by NOAA at: http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/snowstorms.html You can also follow along with other ideas at: twitter.com/iccars

1. Impressions from PLC meetings
–from Leaders who have had PLC meeting(s)
Sheila: Not as many teachers as I had hoped. Had practic meeting with two people in building. Actual meeting there was one more meeting. I have a couple more people. 2 researchers from U of AZ will join. Climate Assessment of the SW. Could we have more than 15 members? If there are only 15 maybe there wouldn’t enough at each meeting.

Gary: Snow is problem in CT. First day was snow day. Used ReadyTalk. Some potential participants had equipment only at school, so could not participate on snow day. There are 12 people who say they want to participate but not showing up on website. People have to have a Google Docs account. Fran: If they gave e-mail address that was not Google then they could not edit. If you get it to the point where there is only one head icon, it works.
Alan [asynchronous]: It just occurred to me…I wonder if your teachers are having problems if they have multiple Google accounts or if the e-mail address you used for sharing the Site is not “connected” with their Google account? I have had a lot of frustration having more than one Google account. It helps to log out of all the accounts and try just one, or just Quit/Exit that browser altogether and start over from scratch. There may also be an option to “Sign in as a different user” which may be the route to try, but it’s most important for your member PLC teachers to know what e-mail address you used to share the site with them and for them to login with the same e-mail address. It doesn’t help to have a gmail account, if the site has been shared with their other e-mail address, and in particular if that address has not been “connected” with Google account. Perhaps the teacher has set up a Google account but the e-mail address they are using with the Lifelines PLC is a different e-mail. That e-mail can be added to the Google account. Instructions for this are on our Lifelines Google Site Tips page
https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelines/how-to/google-site-tips/google-site-help

Patti: From Georgia State U. NASA GCC PLC with college professors at GSU. Decided to join Lifelines as a PLC. Exploring ways to get more teachers. Don’t have to meet online—meet at Georgia State U. Will have event at Georgia Science Teachers Convention.

David Bydlowski: Wayne RESA, Intermediate School Dist. Has NASA grant investigation climate change and remote sensing. Has 16 in PLC, and usually get 14-15. Uses Adobe Connect. 3 topics each meeting: curriculum, climate change, remote sensing. Then have round robin. Feb 7 is next conf call. There aLways a task to do. Went to GLOBE meeting in CO. Spoke with Teresa Kennedy, Donna Charlavoy about how valuable PLCs are turning out to be. First meeting was in Dec that was a snow day. Meeting still went on and participation was really good. All the teachers ahve iPads. They know they have to stay in touch. ReadyTalk and Adobe Connect do not work on iPad. Meetings are going really well. Recording is accessible from the RESA website. Patti: About assignment—is it new standards or lesson plans? Dave: [both] First looked at standards, then driving questions, then assessment, then put together the lessons, then student projects. Okay-Dave

Cris DeWolf: 10 people in PLC. Most showed up to meeting. Getting info about what texts and courses tehy are teaching. (1 from MD). Uses wiki. Doing communication back and forth with discussion board feature of wiki. Assignment: sign up as NASA Explorer School teacher. Earth Climate Course. On demand video workshop presentation. You can be Explorer School teacher without whole school being Explorer school. Google NASA Explorer School to find out how to sign up. Need to follow up with 2 teachers who could not make meeting. (Okay – no edits CD)

Don Duggan-Haas: PLC met in Dec. 1st Mon eve of the month. 2nd mtg didn’t happen (after x-mas break). Only 5 right now, but discussions have been good. Pointing to full curricula about climate change and Earth Science curricula that address CC well. Assignments… reading on the power of story in teaching. All friends on Facebook and share things that way. Disadvantage—not clear archive system. Will put up site soon. (Okay – DD-H, we’ve now rescheduled to the second Thursday and had a very good discussion this week, and site is now up, using Wiggio.)

Fran Hess: PLC met Dec and Jan and will be meeting next week. 13 in group. meetings about 6 people at a time. Working out bumps of getting everything together. Everyone can look at website and share things that way. Would like to see group bigger.

Emily: have not had first meeting. Coordinate with Fran—back to back meeting time. Can we have request spreadsheet on Leaders site. Have 10, but 7 are teachers. 3 don’t qualify for stipend. One is from Canada. One is from State Dept of Env Protection interested in air quality. One from Cambodia working in college level. Should I limit those types of participants. Sheila: wanted to add non-teachers to enrich group. Don: also have non-teacher in the group (Luann Dahlman). They add a lot to conversations. Fran: Have non-traditional educators also—great addition to group. Resourcefulness goes both ways. Gary: CT? New applicant from CT on the Google Doc. Fran: put link to spreadsheet with member assignments here….

2. Recruitment Updates/Issues
–round robin
These issues came up in agenda item 1 already.
Requirement: please update your recruitment status on the Recruitment page.
Here is the link to our Google Doc nation-wide Lifelines recruitment spreadsheet
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AisxQygnd5EldDN0dFpsWkNTbHUxUE5DVFZyUlU3dGc&hl=en#gid=0

3. Communications Updates
    –Skype Issues: Don: new version of Skype is coming out. Current version worked fine for Dec meeting. New version may allow up to 6-way videoconference.   Requires that everyone have new version and one person subscribe for video (8$/mo).    Gary uses Skype for Leaders meeting but did not work this time. Fran: downloaded beta version. Did not work for meeting. Don: New version is out of beta. Maybe problems are fixed.
    –ReadyTalk Issues
       Chairperson Feedback to ReadyTalk generates e-mail to Alan.
    –Other

4. Plans for speakers
–are there potential speakers on issues relevant to climate change in your area?
Upcoming speakers are listed on our Lifelines presentations page

5. Shall we collect and analyze course plans (summaries or outlines)?
    – what textbooks or reading materials are used? what labs or investigations?
    – where do exemplary CCE resources fit in?
    – should we have “community pages” (cross-PLC) to share ideas on specific types of courses?
      (Environmental Science, Earth Science, Physics, Chem, Biology,…).
     -hh

6. Getting your stipend and Evaluation issues
   -To get your stipend you must have
      *Completed survey from evaluator
      *Have started a PLC with at least 7(?) members (can grow to 15+)
      *Have a website (or equivalent) for your PLC communication
      *Have had PLC meeting(s) with notes/minutes on record
      – Interviews

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

3/8/2011

Attending: Fran Hess, Cris DeWolf, Emily Sherman, Patti Cook, Sheila Scanlan, John Shribbs, John Erickson, Alan Gould

Recording of meeting is posted at
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/lifelines/archive/

First part of the meeting we reviewed some ReadyTalk techniques—how to allow other participants to Share Desktop. This can be done by the “Promote to Co-Presenter” function. Not to be confused with the “Grant Control” function which allows others to control the presenters computer. There is a ReadyTalk Hints page https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelines/readytalk/readytalk-hints on this site.

Emily Sherman shared a new resource/activity called Stabilization Wedges, found at
http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges
She said her students really got into it and that it was a good colnclusion to a climate change unit, since it is about possibilities for doing something about climate change.

Alan remembered to press the record button about this time, so the last part of Emily’s description is recorded in the Lifelines archive:
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/lifelines/archive/

Summary of the rest of the meeting:
Alan showed two resources on the Lifelines Leaders resources page: the recent EPA Climate Change Indicators report and podcasts by David Suzuki.
The Resources page now is a table with 3 columns:
Description of resource in first column
Date and who contributed in second column and
Third column for comments from people on usefulness of the resource.

Alan is asking that the asynchronous request for action is for every leader to look at the Resource page and make a comment for one of the resources (either one you have experience with or one you check out) or add a resource that you have used or otherwise know to be good.

The other question Alan brought up is that there is $400 per leader available that was originally in the grant for getting video peripherals or softare, but it’s looking like we won’t be using those now. So the question is, do you have any ideas for best use of that grant money for the purposes of this project? Think about that and we’ll discuss ideas at later meeting.

John Shribbs mentioned that Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) came and gave a presentation at his school. There will be presentation by Matt Lappé of ACE to this group in April.

Upcoming presentations are listed on https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelines/presentations

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

3/12/2011 NSTA

Notes from Lifelines Meeting at NSTA 2012 mar 12 in San Francisco

Attending
Rob Davey, Lori Salles, Traci Wierman, Cherilynn Morrow, Patti Cook, Don Duggan-Haas, John Shribbs, John Sierra, Dave Bydlowsky, John Moore, Jim Callahan

Why form Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)?

Share ideas. Communication,
Known Resources,
opportunities to distill and share the best resources
opportunities to connect with colleges/universities.
University resources can contribute. Can students go to the colleges?

There may be valuable links to New Generation Science Standards that are currently being written and well be put out for comments from the educational community this year.

What are challenges in forming PLCs?

Getting busy people to do “one more thing.”
Recruitment, retention, and participation.
Sustainability.
Challenge in getting the “right” people—those who will participate and contribute.
Need to have more than just the PD enthusiasts who are very active in PD efforts.
Need reasonable, doable requirements or expectations.
Members can’t always make it to live meetings.
Getting teachers to put up their “stuff” (lesson plans, techniques…)

What are best means of distance communication?

Adobe Connect + telephones
Skype is good for 2 to 7 people for audio. Just 1-1 for audio+video.
People must learn to mute, with any telephone medium.
webinars, web conferences
ReadyTalk is good for larger groups and has desktop sharing, but need to learn the tools.
Wiki spaces
Course outlines…planned series of lesson plans.
Frequency of meetings: monthly? quarterly (but longer meetings).
More frequent promotes better bonding. Monthly might be best.
Asynchronous means of communicating: Wiggio, Facebook, Websites, Wikis

Teachers may have trouble documenting their lesson plans in ways that other teachers can understand easily.

We need resources for infusing climate change in existing courses
American Meteorological Society has Earth Climate Systems course

Examples of resources:

from GSS: online interactive where students make prediction of CO2 levels, projecting from the familiar Keeling CO2 data. Part 2 of interactive has data from 12 stations around the world. Goes with GSS Climate Change book, chapter 6.
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/uptodate/2cc/maunaloafindings/
What’s the Worst that Could Happen? –book by Greg Craven gregcraven.org, possible
American Association of Petroleum Geologists

Some states are going away from using textbooks.
Looking for open source materials.
Or interactive formats.

Community participation beyond the classroom.

Leader’s Site URL:
https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelines/

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

4/5/2011

Attending: Ardice Hartry, Billy Goodman, Cris DeWolf, David Bydlowski, Fran Hess, John Erickson, Patti Cook, Traci Wierman, Alan Gould

Full audio-visual archive of this meeting is at
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/lifelines/archive/index.html#meetings

“To-do of the month” for asynchronous participation
We’d like to encourage asynchronous participation of leaders (for leaders meetings and Leaders website) and of PLC members (for each PLC meeting and wiki/website/…)
To this end, it would be good to have a fairly simple “To-do of the month” that each leader (each member) is expected/encouraged to do.
For a first task, I propose that every leader announce to their PLC that every teacher can now post their course outline in a central site for easy reference and comparison within a given type of course (biology, chem, physics, Earth Sci, ….)
In the left navigation of this site there is a new item: Courses, under which are various course types. If a teacher clicks on the “Lifelines Course Outline Form” link on any of those pages, they can copy their course outline into a form that will then be posted on its own page that area of this website, under the proper category.
Quick recap of NSTA meeting
see notes from the NSTA face-to-face Leaders meeting
PLC questions and issues
David: e-collaborative doesn’t seem to be working. Starting up a Google site instead.
—Is there a limit to the Google Sites? (answer: yes, it might be 100Mb, which ain’t much)
Solution is to post any large files on some separate site that can handle big files. Picasa can have images. YouTube or Google Video can take movies/animations.

—Next month we may try different software to do PLC meetings: Bluejean. Allows 10 videos. Uses Skype.
—Is meeting time 6 or 6:30?   6:30 works best for West coast to allow teachers to finish their classes.
—Are low numbers for presentations a problem? Will people really go and listen to the archived versions?
Can we have “sign in” or comment page on each PLC site for the presentation?
Could discuss presentations at meetings.
—Will teachers get stipends this summer? Answer: they’ll get stipends once they’ve filled out 2 online forms that are being prepared, one for NASA and one that is Lifelines project-specific. The forms will likely be available either late May or even more likely late summer (Aug or early Sep).
—This time of year is crazy for teachers. Plan to regroup in Sep or Aug. Maybe even have one session (face-to-face?) during the summer. General break from May-Aug or Sep.
Might be good to have face-to-face mtg of PLC in Aug.
—Perhaps the $400 technology budget item could go toward convening a face-to-face.
Someone from CLEAN/CLN said that they’re trying to bring many different climate change programs together somehow. Alan: Ardice and I attended a tri-agency PIs meeting (NASA, NOAA, and NSF) in Washington DC for all climate related grant projects of all the agencies.
Fran: Can the $400 tech budget item be for hardware or software? It’s possible…Alan will check on possibilities, limitations, and how to do it.
“How-to” additions
See new “how-to” items (in left nav):
Becoming a Lifelines Leader
Becoming a Lifelines PLC member
How to Obfuscate an e-mail address for posting on a website.

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

5/17/2011

Agenda:
—Greetings
—Round Robin on PLC issues/activities/meetings
—Summer plans/Brainstorm focus question(s) for asynchronous participation
—Latest communication techniques
—New Resources
—Course Outlines updates
—Evaluation/feedback mechanisms
—Princeton Wedges & PBS show
—Alaska—-Denali—any connections?
—Dates for next next year
Call toll-free phone
866-740-1260
use access code
[access code sent by e-mail]
For desktop sharing go to
http://www.readytalk.com
and use same access code.
Notes:
ATTENDING: Sheila Scanlan, Dave Bydlowski, Fran Hess, Jim Callahan, Mike Tally, Emily Sherman, Cris DeWolf, John Erickson, Shirley Lee, Gary Bent, John Shribbs

—Round Robin on PLC issues/activities/meetings
    Alan: Reminder about upcoming presentation—-tomorrow!!! Wed 5/18/2011 at 3:30pm PDT:
              Jim Callahan giving presentation about climatechangeeducation.org website.
              Same meeting connection method as in upper right of this pageRecording of meeting is posted at
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/lifelines/archive/
[recording started near the end of Emily Sherman’s round robin, when she asked about how to record meetings in ReadyTalk and Alan remembered to start the recording (late) as demonstration of how to do it.]

Cris: Meeting on May 9. Not well attended. Got new member from Jim M’s group. My one out-of-stater is my most active participant. She has posted quite often on our wiki, and also is the only one who has shared a course outline thus far. Gave late notice on connection info to our potential new members. No RSVP was required this time. RSVP may actually be very helpful to promote attendance. Next meeting planned for Aug. Plan to do asynchronous things via the wiki over the summer, discussing plans for the upcoming school year, continuing to share resources, etc.. Looked at climate resources—-GLOBE. Piloting things related to climate change. The bulk of our meeting was spent exploring a phet resource on greenhouse gases with one of the shared lesson plans posted to that site. I will be using this with my Biology IB students next week. To wrap up the mtg, I asked the participants to share their thoughts on the phet materials on the discussion board, and to respond to each others post – trying to promote use of this tool.

David: Will give URLs here later. Had last meeting of year. Next meeting Sep. Climate change summit happened. Kickoff for climate change & remote sensing project. Did series of videos on carbon cycle, using probes. Upcoming things (May 18 presentation). Selecting new teachers starting soon….another 32 teachers. Talked about Lifelines for next year—-3 groups instead of 1. Reminded people of grants they might be interested in. e.g GLOBE. Teachers are done with climate change subjets for this year. Talked about using iPads in climate change —-Fran. Student projects on climate change. Shifted Google Sites. Meeting time is 2nd Mon of the month

Emily: Question: challenge with ReadyTalk desktop sharing. 3 meetings: one introductory and 2 content. Each members take turns sharing things that work in climate education. Need to figure out how people not contributing can contribute. Have 8 real members. Should I be doing additional recruiting. Fran: allow others to join. Be receptive. Sheila: This year is startup year with core group. Start time is important. And getting professional growth hours can be important. Want to pull in some more people. Dave: In Michigan there are school meetings—6 committee meetings per year can qualify teacher for professional credit. People have missed meetings.
Emily….can we record meetings? Alan: Yes. Gave demonstration—-press the record button, give the recording a name, and at end of meeting press record button again to stop. Then log in to REadyTalk site as chariperson and find the recording. It can be posted on a website, either audio only or visual+audio (Flash-based).

Fran: This has been a very busy month implementing the idea for starting up a new iPad CC PLC —- right off the bat, got 48 signups! The group was divided into 3 groups to allow for interactions between participants during the meetings. The iPad CC PLC met in evenings at 6 and 8 pm with meetings on two different nights. Attendance at the 8 pm meetings was larger. 21 out of 48 showed up at real-time meeting. It appears that the iPad captured their interest and attention pulling them in. In-service credit for participating is being offered. Fran is keeping tabs of attendance and will provide certificate. Credit can be for STEM (which includes and goes beyond just climate change studies). A separate website was set up for iPad PLCs. The site can be reviewed at: https://sites.google.com/site/ipadclimatechangelifelinesplc/Lifelines-for-Central-NYS Each person has his or her own web page on the site. Having three groups allows participants flexibility in time and day to attend monthly meetings. Meeting note-taking offers an additional hour of professional development credit. Activities that participants are currently jointly collecting information on separate webpages on the website include: Tips for Beginning iPad Use. How They Use the iPad in Classroom and a sign up and report webpage on a specific app of their choosing. The website is being used to record, store and share contributions. We are finding that there is a definite learning curve for participants to learn how to actively use and contribute to the website requiring a considerable amount of time between the participants and leader. The regular PLC has 13 members, 7 of which have attended meetings. It is hoped that providing professional development in-service hours will help promote participation. David B joined iPad group. Anyone wishing to visit our meetings is welcome. Regular scheduled meetings will be occurring October-May, but some people wished a June and mid-summer meeting which is being scheduled as an option for all to attend. We are looking forward to an exciting year as we all interact among the PLC’s this leader has established with the wealth of personal resources the participants can be to one another.

Gary: Had meeting May 4. Have had 4-5 meetings, with attending from 3 to 7 people. Another 5-6 indicated they’re interested, but have not started. Problem with timing…some want right after school and some want evening. Might try 5pm. On website, only 3-4 people putting anything on website. Gary can give someone access to website, but if they do not have Google account…Gary needs to go back and re-do their access. It seems that all members need gmail account to be sure they have edit access. Google docs account works too. Yahoo account can work maybe. To edit you need to sign in and sign in link is at bottom of page—-people don’t see that. After May 31 meeting, won’t meet again until Sep.How to teachers get their stipends? Two things: Participation in the PLC and giving feedback via form –to be announced this summer and completed by Aug or early Sep.

Sheila: 5 people active. Want to add more next year. Will stipend be available next year? Yes, it’s a 3 year project. April meeting didn’t happen—-too much workload. In March meeting, the idea of professional dev credit was suggested. Won’t have time for May meeting. Will aim toward having people put photo on website and add material to website. Going to Denali—-want to find researchers and make contict with/get feedback from them. Hope to give report on trip afterward. Did Princeton Wedges activity in connection with energy. Fossil fuels -> climate change -> alternative energy. Made paper wedge instead of wood wedge. Worked well—hopeful nature of ….PowerSurge on PBS also fit in really well with Princeton Wedges. PowerSurge went through each of the wedges. Will try to get it for class next year. Want to work on summer project for PLC members
Fran: have Sheila’s Alaska report recorded and archived

John Shribbs: Personal efforts on educating about climate change— a lot. PLC has only 1 strong participant and a few other partly. 20 are signed up on paper, but not participating. Very disappointing. Aiming for APS teachers. APS teachers are stressed and don’t have time to have a meeting each month on 1 topic. Tried e-mails, but no responses. Will try phone calling in June. On the positive side, personally working with a Sonoma State U professor, communicating with other countries—China and Norway. Students got a lot out of it—they were participating more than the other countries. Research was about teleconferencing students-to-students using Moodle. Moodle is free if you have server for it. Worked with Jim Callahan and Pasco. Curriculum is posted on wikispace site linked through Lifelines leaders site. Got $200,000 grant to purchase Pasco labs.
Sheila—question: can you put links to the lab and videos on your site? Can go in Course outline—curriculum plan area also. Sheila is AP reader…going to APES Reading…June 1.
Flier at http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/gss/lifelines/

Mike: Less time with face-to-face and more sharing through wiki site and e-mail. Currently have 9 members. Using Wimba. Have new high school that let’s students get a year of college.

Don Duggan-Hass (post-meeting): We’ve only got three regular participants, plus me, but they are actively engaged. We’ve discussed a couple of engaging books over the last few months — Greg Craven’s What’s the Worst that Could Happen? and Randy Olson’s Don’t be Such a Scientist. Craven’s book rubbed some members the wrong way, but led to rich discussion and all agreed that it’s the tone of the book that is off-putting to some while the content is useful, especially the credibility spectrum. Olson’s book was more uniformly liked, though the scientist turned filmmaker films were less well liked than the book. But the book lays out nicely what he’s trying to do. Next month, a couple of our members will use The Story of Stuff in class and we’ll be discussing that.

—Summer plans/Brainstorm focus question(s) for asynchronous participation
Add items to meetings notes
Gary: do something after the meeting that never shows up on Google doc or website, e.g investigate a resource and post result as to its usefulness.
John: need a blog area or addendum. Let people know something’s been posted.
Gary: went to Laura Tennenbaum’s (nasa.climate.gov) archived—Eyes on the Earth
Alan: there is contest to get activities from teachers on ways to use the climate.nasa.gov tools/resources. See flier attached at the bottom of this page.
Posting course outlines.
Alan: —I’ll send out notice to ALL PLC leaders to come edit and make additions to this page within two weeks. Then I’ll send out notice to come back to this page to admire and receive the full illuminance of the corrections and additions.
—Latest communication techniques
Alan: http://join.me is a free desktop sharing service. With free Skype (and relatively small group), it could be a free alternative to ReadyTalk or other commercial services.
—New Resources
Alan: Resources page has been reorganized into 3 categories

—Course Outlines updates
Alan: There is now separate course outlines sharing website (Google site). Any teachers who contribute will be given edit access to that site. May be easier than using the form that was set up (assuming teachers can learn to add material to Google Site). We will likely keep both methods.

—Evaluation/feedback mechanisms—Princeton Wedges & PBS show

—Alaska—-Denali—any connections?

—Dates for next next year: First Tue of the Month.

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

6/7/2011

Agenda Items

Summer tasks
Coordinating resources
Round robin

Present at Meeting: Cris DeWolf, David Bydlowski, Fran Hess, Patti Cook, Stephanie Chasteen, Dave Swartz, Emily Sherman, John Erickson, Mike Tally, Gary Bent, Andre Pineda, Shirley Lee

Alan (intro): Have meetings once a month. Unexpected amount of meetings have been setting up communication systems and the rest of the time has been about actual content about teaching climate change at high school level.
Possible tasks over the summer for leaders and teachers:

setting up feedback survey sites (in motion) happening in August for all members and leaders before stipends are given. Will possibly be 4 different surveys (through Aug and Sept)
course outlines

Summer Tasks

Fran: there is a free system Joinme.com

Alan: Lifelines Course Outlines new Google Site. Suggestions? Comments?
Gary-Seems like a great idea.
David-Meeting with teachers in August-will be more appropriate time to upload new curriculum before school.

Coordinating Resources
Alan: Emily’s page on Lifelines. Resources page is set up in “file cabinet” template.

Emily: Chose “project page” pre-made template over on menu site. Seemed like a nice way to share resources. Looking at a page with many resources listed can be overwhelming and confusing. By setting it up in this neat structured manner with a quick summary provided, it’s easier for the user to browse. When something is talked about in a meeting, it is posted on the site. It may become too clustered later on, but it seems to be working fine for now.
Alan: In the status section, it states whether or not it’s classroom tested or not, which is a critical thing to examine. If it is classroom tested, others know that the it works…it’s like “teacher’s approved” stamp. Perhaps we have a page that’s dedicated for only those particular resources.
We may think about having a general page like this…could be helpful for teachers.
Gary: Agree that there is a distinction between tested and not tested. Perhaps add on a heading.
Patti: Some of the problems teachers saw with Lifelines is that they had to go to individual’s sites to access resources. Too cumbersome.
Fran: Adding a search tool could be helpful. The idea of having a search engine, which could search all websites, would be a useful tool.
Alan: Looking at course outlines on the new Lifelines list…there’s a detailed outline. What are the resources that are used in this curriculum? Adding resources, activities, etc. to the outline can be a good supplement.
Course outlines are resources for teachers teaching similar courses…can see how others are teaching/share information and resources etc. Very experienced teachers can upload their courses for newer teachers who are looking for a teaching resource.
Emily: It would be nice to have a separate page that is only classroom tested and organize by category/heading. Want a balance between what is useful but also not overwhelming.

There is a challenge of collecting resources. It seems that each PLC site has a resource page…and each one has done it differently. Idea brought up of creating a common system for organizing resources.

Gary: Classroom tested should be its own category. For the rest, have it by topics.

Alan: Take a look at CLEAN’s Resources page using search toolbar.

Dave: No need to emulate CLEAN. Real power of PLC, of our group, is this sense of community. Sometimes we drift off into other areas. Resources are good…but we want to keep and make stronger connection with teachers. Don’t want to re-create what’s already been done.

Patti: Idea of rating the resources and allowing for comments.

Gary: Emphasis of “teacher’s tested/approved”. Biggest problem is not lack of resources, but rather, not having the time to evaluate and assess the quality of the resources.

Round Robin
Chris: Thinking about trying to re-organize website over the summer. Working on getting outlines posted.
David: Selected another 40 people…will be having 3 or 4 of the PLC’s and greatest quandary is how to do it. Do it once a month instead of having different dates.
Fran: Meeting with iPad group.
Patti: Attach links to activities
Stephanie: Just getting started, but meeting was useful to see what other teachers are doing.

New resource! National Academy Press
America’s Climate Choices
From release: As of June 2, all PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press (NAP) will be downloadable to anyone free of charge. This includes a current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports produced by the Press. Printed books will continue to be available for purchase through the NAP website and traditional channels.
The free PDFs are available exclusively from the NAP’s website (http://www.nap.edu/) and remain subject to copyright laws. PDF versions exist for the vast majority of NAP books.

Alan: #1 main goal: mechanisms for communication and have it happen between teachers.

Next meeting: July 5th 3:30 pm pacific daylight time.

Presentation by John Pickle on using digital earth software…June 14th through Readytalk (week from this meeting)

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

7/5/2011

Alan, Fran, Jim C, Stephanie, Shirley, John P, Emily

Topics:
New communication tools (BlueJeans; join.me; Skype)
Webex is another service.
Stephanie: Evo is multi-platform video conferencing. Developed at Berkeley??

Update on Course outlines
We aim for all Lifelines PLC members to post course outlines to share on the Course Outlines site.
PLC members who are not teachers can post individual lesson plans/activities.

Round Robin
Stephanie: Putting thing on the Lifelines site later this summer. Lesson plans are being reviewed by the CLEAN folks. Revisions based on that review.
Fran: iPad PLC meeting planned for July. May have guest webcast.
Emily: People expressed interest in meeting in the summer, but not much reaponse on dates. 3-5 people attend regularly. Room for more members. People are sharing, but some have not taught climate change yet. Group can look at a resource together and discuss.
Jim Callahan: National Center for Science Education (evolution folks) are entering field fo climate change. They’re hiring full time staff person. Help teachers better deal with problems related to teaching about climate change.
Conference in Monterey at Naval Post-graduate School – international conference Oct 30-Nov 2. Teachers invited.
John P: John is a new Lifelines Leader focused on Digital Earth Watch software. Workshop on using digital cameras in education—climate change in particular. Interest in using Google Earth, LadSat Click’n’Pic, and Earthshots.
Don: (chiming in post meeting): We’re taking July off of meeting, but continuing discussion asynchronously. There are really only three active members, but they’re reliable, and I know others continue to lurk in the electronic discussions. The current topic of discussion is helping one of our group prepare to give a keynote presentation at a conference on place-based learning, and bringing climate to the discussion. We used join.me in our last meeting and really like it.
Resources; CLEAN links
Establish your own leader’s ReadyTalk account (at no extra cost)–no schedule conflicts.
Please put your name here if you’d like your account for free during this project:
Fran Hess
Stephanie??
Emily Sherman

Establish Lifelines e-mail list for all Lifelines members.
Establish Lifelines PLC member-at-large for applicants not connecting with existing Lifelines leaders.
Upcoming Lifelines surveys (August)

answers by PLC
question about participation on PLC site

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

8/29/2011

Dave Bydlowski, Cris DeWolf, Alan Gould, Dave Swartz, Emily Sherman, John Erickson, John Shribbs, Mike Tally, Don Duggan-Haas, Jim Callahan, Stephanie Chasteen, Andre Pineda

Asynchronously: Fran Hess (8/31/11) Hear/see archive of meeting

(Quicktime opens in new window; 44Mb; 60 min)
-Surveys and Stipends and Course Outlines, oh my. (Alan)
Shirley (evaluator) reported that there are 63 survey respondants to the Lifelines project survey, almost 1/3 of our project participants. That plus the NASA survey are 2 of 3 requirements to get stipend. Important: Leaders should ALSO take the NASA survey. Since I can’t find out easily (or at all) from NASA who took the survey, I’d like for you and your PLC members to e-mail me (respond to the previous message) to let me know if they took the NASA survey.
David B: is there a way we can ave you work by having to get e-mails from everyone?
Alan: I appreciate that. Shirley or I can let you know who took the Lifelines surveys, but not the actual answers, other than in an anonymous-aggregate fashion. We actually need to hear from each person who wants to receive stipend—Peggy Storrs needs to call each person to get SS #. So just call in.
Stephanie: should new members do survey?
Alan: No…they can take it after several months (or year) participation. I’ll get Shirley to send Leaders baseline survey to new Leaders.
3rd requirement for stipend is to participate in one of 3 (or more) ways: be at meetings (live or asynchronously; there should be evidence on PLC website of participation); post course outline with climate elements to the Lifelines Course Outlines site; add or make commentary to Resources.
https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelinescourses/

-Resources have now been moved from the Leaders site to the Course Outlines site, so that PLC members can contribute project-wide. Each Resource page is now divided into two sections: (a) resources that are Lifelines member-tested and (b) resources that are promising—probably good—but untested as yet by Lifelines PLC members. You as leaders can add your PLC members with permission to edit the site. Editors must log in with Google account. Doesn’t have to be a Google e-mail address, but the e-mail address must be linked with the person’s Google acct

-ReadyTalk questions? Reminder: all leaders now have their own ReadyTalk acct so you do not have to sign up on the Lifelines Leaders ReadyTalk Calendar anymore. You can start up a meeting anytime you want without interfering with other Leaders.
Dave B: Have been using Adobe, but thinking of switching to ReadyTalk—-is everyon going to be using ReadyTalk? Emily: definitely using it. Don: suing Wiggio and Skype—and are relatively happy with that. May not change, but may try it out. Cris: using ReadyTalk.
We did “hand-raise” of those who use or plan to use ReadyTalk. Need to have chat open to see Hand-Raise. Shows up as yellow highlight in chairpersons attendees list. -PLC Leader updates (round robin)
Emily Sherman (ME): Not met in summer. Will start up later in Sep. Will update website. Will start recording meetings. A woman from Canada presented an ice core activity, adapted from Science Teacher. Will do that again and record it for archive. Correct as of 10.20.11
Cris: Planned to get together in Aug, but it never happened. So I used the time to migrate our site over from a wikigroup to a Google Site. Also linked the new Google site to a Google group for asynchronous discussions. Several PLC members have posted replies to my initial post. Not very many PLC members have commented on the new site, nor responded to my inquiry about their continued participation. Will pursue this more prior to our upcoming September teleconference. Edited by C.DeWolf 8/31 1:15 ET
Alan: level of participation is widely variant. 63 people have filled out surveys, but i have not been contacted by 63 people by any means. They might not know they have to contact me to let me know they have completed requirements. Please let your participants know they should contact me.

Dave Swartz and Stephanie Chasteen: Group is forming. Next week will be face-to-face meeting at restaurant in Ft Collins. Invitation has been sent out to a a number of networks. Will have entertainment from the Little Shop fo Physics. After in-person meeting, we’ll have ReadyTalk meeting for those who can’t make the in-person meeting. Plan to broadcast the in-person meeting broadcast through ReadyTalk (1/quarter) and other meetings just by ReadyTalk. May also meet in Boulder or other places in CO.

Andre (AZ): [log in to web, but not on telephone?]

Dave B (MI): 2nd week in Aug, ICARRS trained an additional 43 teachers. Lost two of the previous teachers. PLC meetings scheduled for the year—1st on on Sep 12. times: 4pm, 5:30pm, 7pm. No teachers wanted to meet earlier. Some interest in 6am meeting, but that’s not gonna happen. In training we did a lot with GLOBE student activities http://globe.gov/scrc. A meeting at MI state capital a slide came up about Lifelines, unbeknownst to me. I was able to step in and talk about it. Nice shot in the arm for Lifelines. We have it easier than most. We give stipends and give out iPads. have interesting non-science participants. One is going over papal documents about environment. Very interesting.

Don Duggan-Haas (NY): In Western NY there was no rain from Irene, though I was camping in central NY and got rain as well as flat tire. Our group is small (3) but mighty. Very Took July off (but swapped e-mails), but met in Aug. Helped Deena Strasser prepare a place-based presentation—keynote speaker. In Aug meeting we reflected on summer. Next month everyone will bring activity to share and will discuss an article about controversy in the classroom about climate change.

Jim Callahan (CA): Bay Area Science Festival—in SF Giants baseball there wil be thousands of people, as well as event in John Shribbs area and also down in Monterey area. Lifelines will be featured. Climate as national Security issue at US Post Naval Institute.

John Erickson (LHS): I’m at LHS 2 floors below Alan. working on 6th grade activities.

John Shribbs (CA): Env Sci listserv recruitment got lots of interest but very disappointing results. Key message is teachers are just too busy. Need to do a whole new market plan. Took time off—put in native plants and veggies.

Mike Tally (NC): Dodging earthquakes and hurricanes, but we’re alright. Developing wiki page and communicating through e-mail. Had a lot of rain from Irene. Lots of flooding, but we’re digging out. Also the earthquake. Recently opened new STEM HS.Alan: wikis can be public or not. Mike: you have to be invited through e-mail—only for teachers in the PLC.

-Upcoming presentations —lining up Preston Lewis for MY NASA Data.—Sheila Scanlan ask me to give you her regards and let you know she had a great time in Alaska—Denali Park, where she met a number of climate scientists who came to Alaska for research because polar regions are way more affected by climate change than most areas (except perhaps Pacific Islanders, …. coral reefs, ….)
Photos: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150287588162716.355522.664817715&l=2f50eef29d&type=1

Dave B: question about IPCC. At meeting with state climatologist said that IPCC has the most reliable data regarding climate change. Does anyone have views on that? Alan: I concur. IPCC is one of the most vetted processes—most definitive and authoritative source for climate change. Very technical and voluminous—lots of charts, graphs. Don: it’s the biggest assemblage of scientists working on any project. It’s the go-to source.

Asynchronously: F. Hess Sorry to have missed the meeting. Due to Irene we have been without power for a few days.. still not stable and still no phone service… However regarding my PLC’s. We had a meeting this August with a programmer and discussed the designing of iPad Apps. This was recorded and is located someplace on our site. I will let Alan place the link here for anyone wishing to view it. [from Alan: 2011 August 8 Guy Ardito: Intro to iPad Programming for Education (67 min)] He is also willing to meet again with the group if so desired. There continues to be an avid interest in the iPad within the Climate Change PLC community. Our regular meetings will resume in October and tentative dates are posted on our website. (BTW, my HD just went too…. so I am using a makeshift setup until I get totally back together…) Happy days… : ) Hoping to report a more stable situation at our next meeting. Take care to all and stay safe.

Meetings for upcoming year:
We’ll meet on last Tue of each month at 7pm Eastern, 6pm Central, 5pm Mountain, 4pm Pacific.

Billy Goodman: I’ve also missed recent meetings. Irene played a small role in the last one, as my return flight from the Canadian Rockies (to see the glaciers before they are gone) to New Jersey was cancelled and I spent 2 extra days in Denver, arriving back home on the 28th after flying to Pittsburgh and driving the final 300+ miles. My PLC was dormant during the summer and I will try to revive it over the next month. My school has purchased some iPads and I’ll get training on Sept. 22, so I hope to lurk on Fran’s site and learn to put them to use.

Baseline survey to new leaders.

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

10/11/2011

Lifelines Leaders Meeting Notes for Oct 11, 2011

Recording/archive: vid+audio; audio-only (65 min)

Attendees: Cris DeWolf, Gary Bent, Alan Gould, Fran Hess, Patti Cook, Shirley Lee, Dave Swarz

Meeting topics:

Key Topic (Leaders please add your ideas or comments on others ideas):
Participation options (requirements?) & goals for coming year (year 2)

Cris: Have participants complete a lesson at on of the following: CLEAN, Earth Exploration Toolbook (12 chapters on climate change), My NASA Data, NASA – Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.

I plan on having my group do the PBS Module – Introduction to Earth’s Dynamically Changing Climate (NASA GCC website above) (http://climate.nasa.gov/PBSmodules/index.cfm) and participate in an asynchronous discussion as they progress through the module from week to week. Discussion questions (for journaling) are included in the module. I will also ask that they do one lesson from one of the other sites mentioned above and share in the group discussion how it went with their classes, and any tips/suggestions they wold have to help make it work better for others in our group. The last thing I would expect from them is a minimum of one new resource – media, activity, etc. to share with the other teachers in our PLC at our website.

I also like Fran’s idea of starting a reading group within my PLC and will solicit suggestions from my members.

I also would suspect that the new national science standards will have elements of climate change education in them. I hope that my state adopts these for our students. I don’t think that there are plans to include science in the common core – outside of basic literacy skills that apply across the board to all subjects.

Gary: Ask the members what they want to get out of it. (Stephanie: I second that)
Fran: Have students look at platforms of candidates and see where they stand on question of climate change.
Gary: The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding about economy related to ecosystem. Can’t fix one without the other. [Comment from Alan G: Coincidentally, I ran across this article in NY Times that mentions Gilding: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/opinion/theres-something-happening-here.html
Excerpt: When you see spontaneous social protests erupting from Tunisia to Tel Aviv to Wall Street, it’s clear that something is happening globally that needs defining. …Paul Gilding, the Australian environmentalist and author of the book “The Great Disruption,” argues that these demonstrations are a sign that the current growth-obsessed capitalist system is reaching its financial and ecological limits. “I look at the world as an integrated system, so I don’t see these protests, or the debt crisis, or inequality, or the economy, or the climate going weird, in isolation — I see our system in the painful process of breaking down,” which is what he means by the Great Disruption, said Gilding. “Our system of economic growth, of ineffective democracy, of overloading planet earth — our system — is eating itself alive. ]
Dave: Ecosystem capital—services & goods that depend on ecosystem.
Fran: Book review corner.
Fran: Common Core Standards — New Generation Science Standards / Framework
Science & Society

Don: For the last several months, we’ve been sharing readings and workshopping each others’ teaching materials and ideas. The group seems to find what we’ve been doing worthwhile and enjoyable, so I expect we’ll continue in a similar vein. For next month, we’ll be revisiting the “Credibility Spectrum” from Greg Craven’s book What’s the Worse That Could Happen? We read Craven’s book in the spring and the response to the book was uneven, but the credibility spectrum came up again in discussion this month, leading some who didn’t like the book to want to revisit that piece. We’ll also be looking at materials from Project Look Sharp, on how the media portrays global warming. See: http://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/?action=global_warming.

Stephanie (not at the synchronous meeting): I like Don’s idea, giving something focused around which to center discussions. I find this general brainstorm question kind of difficult — I think it’s most important to focus on goals and outcomes before specific tasks for our participants. But the goals and outcomes of each PLC is necessarily different. So perhaps, instead, at least one meeting of each PLC should be devoted to listing some specific outcomes (i.e., learning goals) that participants desire, and from there we can figure out some general goals for the program? And maybe “listing the goals for the PLC” *is* one requirement/goal for each PLC?

Course outlines & resources
We’ve had some excellent additions by PLC members to the Course Outlines/Resources site.
https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelinescourses/
Post mtg comment by Alan G: Response to date has been about 12% (28 PLC members out of 15 active leaders + 228 members). Although this may seem low, perhaps it’s not–the 200+ figure for members is really based on number applications to be in PLCs, not follow-through.
We looked at some sample course outlines. Some are posted in their entirety & very exhaustive. Some are attached documents or links to other sites.

Stipends
28 PLC members have been in touch with me to point me to evidence of their Lifelines participation (attending meetings, posting things, completing 2 surveys). Members must contact me with such information in order for me to instruct Peggy to process the $100 stipends.
Leaders who have not received the $500 year 1 stipend should contact me to get that going too.

Communication tools updates
ReadyTalk area of the website is move to “Communication Tools”.

Round robin – what’s on your mind?
Cris: no meeting yet. Some people still interested/some not responding. Thinking of asynchronous work. And recruiting.
Fran: No problems recruiting. Problem is meeting attendance. But meetings are good. Teachers are busy, but those who do participate are getting things out of it. Question: what are the surveys like? Can leaders get feedback given by participants?
Dave: 10 teachers at first meeting. Speaker from Little Shop of Physics. Showed thermal camera & brainstormed ideas—heat radiating from clouds outside; car exhaust. Gave talk on arctic research done at University of . Will have first ReadyTalk meeting soon.
Gary: how much is thermal camera? Dave: about $1K. (cheaper than they used to be)
Can use infrared chip to get IR data.
Gary: Had meeting Sep 28; 5 people. There is NSTA regional in Hartford—may do some recruiting.
Patti: Have not had meeting yet this fall. Planning to present at Georgia Science Teachers Association Convention

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2011-01-04 • 2011-02-01 • 2011-03-08 • 2011-03-12 NSTA • 2011-04-05
2011-05-17 • 2011-06-07 • 2011-07-05 • 2011-08-29 • 2011-10-11 • 2011-11-29

11/29/2011

Lifelines Leaders Meeting Notes for Nov 29, 2011

Present: Cris, Dave, Fran, Don, Mike, Sheila, Alan, Stephanie, Gary, Michael, Shirley

Note: there was a fair amount of good chat action in this meeting and I captured that from the ReadyTalk site after the meeting. It’s all copied at the bottom of this page.
Recording of 2011 November 29 Leaders Meeting: video+audio; audio-only (70 min)

Agenda & Notes:

Life beyond ReadyTalk (alternative communication tools)
JoinMe has participant to participant link— https://join.me/614-499-356 – works well and is free
Skype —
Oovoo —
From chat:
4:44:10 PM – Stephanie Chasteen I also like evo
Revisit PLC goals for this year
Cris: No action on discussion of resources.
Dave: Grant is pretty much structured, that guarantees a lot of participation. Asynchronous mode not as much. 65-70% of people participating.
Fran: What should people do to earn their $100? Maybe come up with a lesson share. New ones for iPads.
New Generation Standards. Do they need to prepare for meetings or with that scare them away?
News from PLCs
Don: conflicts in Nov so no meeting then. Latest meeting was Oct. Next agenda item is some that we read —What’s the Worst that Could Happen?” by Greg Craven. A PLC member contacted Craven. A couple of members were put off by the book. Interesting interchange is in store. He’s done video by same name as book. He is a teacher. gregcraven.org.
Fran: having meetings as scheduled, but at a low right now..1-3 people/mtg. Next meeting is next week. Plan just one meeting for iPad group and one meeting for all others. Some contacted to say they could not make it. Some added notes to web page. More people is better for interaction.
Dave: topic of iPad generated a LOT of people interested. It’s interesting that participation is low.
Fran: iPad is taking off in some schools, and lots of teachers.
Gary: At NSTA Hartford in Oct — 5 people indicated interest in joining. Then CT got slammed by climate change (storm). Weather really slowed things down.
Mike: Looking at climate change & how it fits into standards. Wiki page. Exploring iPads.
Don: iPad workshops—standing room only
Sheila: District-wide PLC. Had physical meeting early this year—with good participation. Follow-up meetings with ReadyTalk. Good sessions. Looking into getting professional credit for time put in PLC. But so far unsuccessful. Need to have paper signed for people physically present—district person not tuned into concept of remote meetings. Members still very interested. Morale is low—workload so heavy. But members are hanging in there. Next mtg on Thur. Goal—talk curriculum specifically how to integrate subject in courses. Invited 2 speakers, one from U of Ariz — Zach Guido.
Stephanie: Had on PLC mtg—in-person, well attended, but not much followup. Getting ready to set up virtual meeting, scheduled for tomorrow. E-mail list does not have a whole lot of participation. 15 people are on e-mail list +4 “inside folks”. Mtg tomorrow will have a presenter from CIRES in Boulder.
Climate Change Education Resources—see contributions via chat.
Project LookSharp is develop media literacy—has nice module on climate change.
Gary: Challenged by Carbon, by Bryan Lovell. Looks at paleoclimatology–how climate changed in 1000 yrs 4-5 deg C change. We may be looking at comparable change in 100yrs
Fran: Synthesis Report responding to Climate Change for NY.
Current event: UN COP meeting in Durban, South Africa (November 28 to December 3, 2011).

[COP=Conference of the Parties …an annual meeting of representatives from the nations who are signatories to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Technical Question: can participants chat with each other rather than just participant-to-presenter?
Webex has this feature. Adobe Connect has that feature too.
Free alternatives:
JoinMe has participant to participant link— https://join.me/614-499-356 – works well and is free
Skype —
Oovoo —

Chat transcript:
4:32:01 PM – Stephanie Chasteen hello
4:35:34 PM – Don Duggan-Haas   https://join.me/614-499-356 [free web conferencing service]
4:44:10 PM – Stephanie Chasteen I also like evo
5:20:26 PM – David Bydlowski Resources: I have done a series of Climate Change Minute Podcasts at http://climatechangeminute.podbean.com
5:20:51 PM – David Bydlowski GLOBE’s Student Climate Research Campaign at: http://globe.gov/scrc
5:21:07 PM – Don Duggan-Haas   http://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/
5:24:44 PM – David Bydlowski Book through NSTA (maybe somewhere else) — Climate Change from Pole to Pole
5:26:57 PM – David Bydlowski Over the past year we have been working with others in the state developing a Climate Coalition, it might provide a model for other areas/states/etc. — http://miclimatecoalition.org
5:29:02 PM – David Bydlowski Great Lakes Integrated Sciences Assessments — GLISA — http://www.glisa.umich.edu
5:29:09 PM – Sheila Scanlan interesting article today on carbon sequestration; US carbon capture project starts to bury one million tonnes of CO2 http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/43628
5:29:58 PM – Fran Hess   http://nyserda.ny.gov/Publications/Research-and-Development/Environmental/EMEP-Publications/~/media/Files/Publications/Research/Environmental/EMEP/climaid/responding-to-climate-change-synthesis.ashx
5:30:22 PM – Stephanie Chasteen that’s fine
5:31:16 PM – Stephanie Chasteen 6:30… but flexible.

~^~

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

~^~

2012

2012-01-31 • 2012-03-27 • 2012-03-30_NSTA • 2012-05-09

1/31/2012

Recording of this meeting: vid+audio; audio-only (72 min)

Attendees: Alan Gould (Moderator), Cris DeWolf, Dave Bydlowski, Don Duggan-Hass, Emily Sherman, Fran Hess, Shirley Lee (Evaluator )
Topics:
-how to gracefully conclude the final grant year
-tour & status of new Global System Science Climate Change unit online.
-startup of some new specialized Lifelines e-mail groups
(discipline-based and/or region-based)
-reduction of number of synchronous meetings during school year
-explore the idea of meetings during course prep time (Aug-Sep)
-begin to establish list of tried and true effective communication tools
-evaluators interviews of Lifelines leaders (with extra stipend)
-free-share – think of issue(s) or resource(s) you’d like to share.

Notes taken by: Shirley Lee

[with additions/edits by Alan…Thanks, Shirley!!]

(Note: Not all comments areverbatim.)

4:00 pm

Alan demonstrates parts of the Global Systems Science (GSS)website on the LHS website.
In particular the GSS book Climate Change is relevant to all the PLCs and worthy topic of interest. The book is in process of being revised and is now available for free, each chapter on its own web page. See

http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/studentbooks/cc

Example of an investigation, with online interactive: What are the human-caused sources ofcarbon dioxide?

www.globalsystemsscience.org/studentbooks/cc/ch6/investigation2

Scenes from pre-industrial and industrial time periods — students click on items that they think contribute to CO2 increase, and read aboutwhether an object contributes to CO2 accumulation or not.

First chapter(s) deal with understanding greenhouseeffect, e.g. understanding the difference between actual greenhouseand earth’s greenhouse effect.

In order to stay up to date, there’sa separate “staying-up-to-date” pages for each chapter.

Chapter on controversial issues is being revised, as the controversy has changed since the original writing. Still lots of debate on bestexplanations for warming… (not as much debate about whetherits warming or not), and especially on to what extent or how severe the consequences will be. And of course, whether or not we should try to do something about it…and what?

Alan: I like having the book online—it’s easy to updatewithout having to worry about it being a published document. We’restill making changes on this book.

Would like to revisit this in thefuture to show revisions and new material—movies and teachers’ guide that we’re working on now.

Dave Bydlowski: Thanks for all of this,Alan. What about teachers’ guide now?

Alan: The teachers’ guide may need tobe a protected site, hidden from students.

Look at “Free Samples Chapters”webpage. Teachers’ guides listed on bottom.

Those also need revision.

Fran: Helps teachers and frees up time.But if students have access, defeats the purpose.

Discussion about challenges of havingthe site accessible to teachers but not accessible to students.

Fran: If teachers and students could dotheir work online, and teachers could track their progress.

Alan: Could even have google docspreadsheet. Students could give answers to questions.

F: Teachers register theircourse/students and then they’ll have access to spreadsheet.

Alan: Book publishers have proprietarysystems so teachers track their students. We’re looking for a freealternative to that. But there’s free and then there’s free.We’re still looking for $ to keep our project going.We’re going to be sprinkling gentle hints on the GSS website here and there for users to support the project. [see http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/order ]

Dave: Different ways to think aboutteachers’ guides where students can benefit. Thanks for making allof that available.

Alan: I was excited about it. It’ssomething I’ve been wanting to do.

What to explore in the coming year?

In the past, most PLCs had monthlymeetings and we’ve had monthly Leaders meeting. Sharing site, likewiki and wiggio

So these things on agenda are ideasfor where we could move:

startup of some new specializedLifelines email groups (discipline-based and/or region-based)
reduction of number of synchronousmeetings during school year
explore the idea of meetings duringcourse prep time (Aug-Sep)

Fran: surveyed her members who werevery positive about info and potential, but weren’t able toparticipate or make it b/c of time. They might feel guilty after missingthe meetings and feel out of the loop.

Alan: Some leaders who are active tchrsdon’t have time, and then they feel guilty about not doing the workor effort. Double guilt for the leaders.

Don: We use Wiggio and have lurkers whohaven’t been in meetings at all. She was glad that she couldeavesdrop and pick up resources even though she doesn’t have timeto join in the meetings.

Alan: Can people from outside see it?

Don: No, only registered people can seeit.

Alan: … it’s almost like being onemail, but you can see what people are putting on the site…

Cris: Yes, you can do that.

Don: We can do that unless you click aRADIO button so it doesn’t do that.

Alan: Gives opportunity to givecontributions.

Fran: Some don’t make thecontribution, but they’re getting a lot from the site.

Maybe if you can track the # of hits orhow many people using the site, you can get an idea of how much yoursite is being used.

Alan: Google has a tool for that. I dothat on the NASA Kepler website.

Fran: Free from Google? And see howoften and how long you’re on a website? I’d like to see that.

[Alan: the function is called Google Analytics, at http://www.google.com/Analytics ]

Dave: Meetings are invaluable. We’vegot facebook, twitter, weblog, etc. the best participation is in themeeting. We don’t have a lot of interaction on Facebook. It’s atime we all come together. But our participation is so good. Teachers are still confused about…signing in… we have to remind them. There’s a lot of power in the monthlymeetings.

Alan: No question about that. If youget a group with regular synchronous meetings, that’s powerful. Butmaybe we’re discovering there’s not one best system foreverybody. Dave, your system is the other grant project is alignedwith this. Makes the asynchronous mode work. I’m jealous of you.We’re probably all jealous of you.

We should document what aspectsencourages people to do that.

Partly has to do with your program.

When teachers attend, not justinterest in topic, but goal at end of the line there thateveryone’s working for.

Alan: Having focus for each meeting isdefinitely an essential element for successful group.

Interviews: [Shirley’s update] I wasable to interview some people, but not all. I’ll send aroundanother request. I’m getting a lot of rich stories and data, andlook forward to getting more.

• Idea: Instead of during the yearmeetings, do more in Aug-Sep during planning time?

Emily: Me personally, sounds like greatidea and I run out of time during year. Last year people said theywere interested (to meet in summer), and only 1 responded. Everyone’ssummer’s different. But it’s worth a try and lets see how itgoes.

Dave: We did a lot of research. Wefound over and over again. When people meet on regular basis. Like PDis set up every 6 weeks, and results tend to be much more positive,they have a chance to apply what they’re learning.

Fran: How people can work together inthis process. This is a learning situation.

Alan: Set up learning communities thatrely on a number of techniques including distance communication

Fran: Even with small #s, they’redoing it.

Fran: Face to face can make adifference… has a gel-ing factor

Alan: The distance meetings mean more after face to face meeting…where people have met in person.

Fran: Next time, could do meeting atNSTA with some support. Encourage people to get together, build thoselinks.

Dave: Any of you going?

Don: I’ll be there. Short course onclimate change issues.

Cris: Me, too.

Fran: Not sure.

Alan: I’m not. But still could have ameeting organized. I’ll look into that.

Dave: I’ll be… remote sensing.

Alan: We’ll communicate more aboutdoing NSTA. Maybe meeting room and time to meet. At very least makeknown to members/leaders who is presenting and where things are beingpresented so we can go to each other’s sessions. So, we should not rule out anything.

• Continue monthly meetings for leaders?

Should we continue monthly leadermeetings? Or reduce it to less often?

Emily: I’d rather do every othermonth. I’ve been attending every other month. We could consolidate and get throughmore [in each meeting].

Don: Me, too.

Fran: Fine with me.

Alan: We may try it out and drop it toless frequently.

We do have email list. We couldintroduce questions on the email list and see if there are responsesto particular questions on the list. Some of you have email lists,some do not. If you do have an email list, is that good or would youlike to have one?

Don: Wiggio serves that purpose for us.I like it. My active members like it.

Dave: Do you mean to discuss ideasamongst ourselves as a Google group or something? If we’re meetingonly every other month?

Alan: Google group is similar to emaillist. Lifelines email list that I use to notify you is one you cansend messages to others on.

Dave: Google group… you can emailmsgs and also go online to see all the responses.

Alan: What about setting up your Google site so itnotifies anyone when you make changes?

Fran: If you have access to it, youdecide as an individual. I don’t think you would decide everybodywould get notified. Could drive you nuts.

Alan: Sheila couldn’t make it. Shehas question. She has people asking her about Chem Trails.

Don: It’s related to conspiracytheory around chemical poisoning. Pretty interesting and weird, in myopinion.

Alan: Sounded non-science based.

Don: Came to my attention in the lastmonth or so. Reminds me of the 9-11 conspiracy theory. There’ssomething coming out of the chemical trails that’s designed tobrainwash us. You can Google it.

Alan: One of Sheila’s teachers hasbeen bugging her about it. Any other topics, announcements?

Dave: Article in Washington Post acouple wks ago. There was a conference that’s against climatechange. I wonder if anybody was aware of that. Some politicalcartoons. Jan 16^th. Talked about conference where peopleconfused science with ideology.

Another thing… is everyone aware ofNCSE… climate change resolution…

Alan: That’s a pretty importantdevelopment. Quickly pulled up NCSE website that was originally aboutevolution. They have a section on climate change. Helps teachers whoare faced with climate deniers. Website: http://ncse.com/climate

Fran: Next meeting?

Alan: Every other month…Last Tue in March is 3/27. We’ll shoot for that.

———end of meeting———

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2012-01-31 • 2012-03-27 • 2012-03-30_NSTA • 2012-05-09

3/27/2012

Agenda
1. New ideas about the Lifelines Course and Resources Site
https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelinescourses/
2. Evaluation of communication methods.
3. Major revisions in the GSS Climate Change book.

Recordings of the meeting (including edited segments containing specific agenda items):

Segment A. 6.5 min: Opening and a bit of Agenda item 2 (communication methods)
Segment B. 9 min: Agenda item 1 (new feature in course outline site & an idea for new type of leader)
Segment C. 24 min: Agenda item 2 (communication methods)
Segment D. 24 min: Agenda item 3 (tour of newly revised Global Systems Science book — Climate Change)
Segment E. 9 min: Announcements, wrap-up, planning next mtg
Whole meeting (72 min): video (mp4) -|- audio only

Attending: (see also Photo Name Tags) Fran, Sheila, Cris, Shirley, Alan

1. New ideas about the Lifelines Course and Resources Site
https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelinescourses/

Alan:

Background
Two new wrinkles have arisen and I’m interested in your thoughts about them:

a. On each of the Teaching Resources pages (Activities, Information, and Multimedia) there is a 3rd column that indicates if the resource has been reviewed by the CLEAN project (Climate Literacy and Awareness Network), and if it is in the CLEAN collections, there is a link to the review page(s).

b. We are contemplating recruiting some new Lifelines leaders, but instead of being region-based, they would be discipline-based. E.g. we could have a Biology course leader who would provide facilitation for all biology teacher PLC members to share ideas and arrive at the best activities and instructional strategies for incorporating climate change in biology courses. Similarly for physics, chemistry, environmental science, Earth science, and other courses. Perhaps even Global Systems Science courses.

Fran: danger of teachers going to another group.

Shelia: Like the idea, as Environmental Science teacher. District is trying to get PLCs together, if they can get credit for what their doing.

Fran: Credit can be provided, keeping track of number of hours.

Sheila: Our district is strict about it…proof needed.

Fran: Can be documented….Alan can certify.

Alan: ReadyTalk as log/reports available

Sheila: Asynchronous stuff is important too.

Cris: If we have category specific to Biology might be of more interest for the Biology teacher….good thing.

2. Evaluation of communication methods.

Alan: I’d like to beef up the “Communication Tools” part of this site to reflect the experiences and findings of Lifelines PLC leaders in terms of what communication strategies there are, their weaknesses and strengths, and what we’re actually using.

Cris: I’m on Google Voice. It’s free. Has mute capability. Mic icon in upper right. You can get telephone number from them, but don’t need one. People could call you at the phone #. You can text message. Can Google Voice do teleconferencing? Works well to participate in telecon.

Fran: you can receive call from another phone # on Google Voice. It’s worth exploring.

Sheila: Google Voice DOES have conference calling.

Cris: subsequent connections have trouble?

Alan: Skype now has video-con up 6 people…and desktop sharing…for how many people?

Fran: Join.me is worth trying. People with ipad can see your screen. Used as screen-sharing, but could be voice also…not sure it it costs, probably not. Archive?

Sheila: are …what is cost of ReadyTalk?

2012-03-28 David Bydlowski:
A. Having a goal in mind, something to work on. I always send out a reminder a week before, then the day before and the day of.
B. Dates scheduled in advance. During the PLC giving everyone a chance to speak/share.
Dave

3. Major revisions in the GSS Climate Change book.
http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/studentbooks/cc

Alan:

Background
Specific chapters that have undergone major revision are chapters 4, 7, 8 and 9. GSS Climate Change book had not been revised since their first release in 2001 (or so). We do not have a “Like this on Facebook” or anything like that (yet?) but I’m certainly curious if the changes are noticed or appreciated, and if the whole book/resource itself may be useful.

Another big change happened in the “Staying Up to Date” area of the GSS site: The main “Staying Up to Date” page (http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/uptodate) still has links to the archive of articles, but it now has an “Announcements” function for new articles (a feature of Google Sites). This makes a separate page for each article, a running list of the articles, and a summary of that can be seen on the GSS home page itself.

In addition, there is now an RSS feed option right on http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/uptodate
People on the e-mail list will still get update articles, probably weekly, but we’re thinking of encouraging people to learn about and use the RSS feed for the articles, and use the GSS e-mail list more for other types of announcements (much less frequent).

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2012-01-31 • 2012-03-27 • 2012-03-30_NSTA • 2012-05-09

3/30/2012 NSTA

Attending (in person):
Shirley Lee
Gary Nakagiri
Kevin Savage
Laurel Kohl
Dave Bydlowski
Andy Henry
David Wehunt
Cris DeWolf
Mike Passow
Elizabeth Harrington
John Erickson

Distance attendees: Alan Gould, Fran Hess

[No recording made.]

Hi-lites of ideas:

Have PLC-wide topics, theme-of the month for all PLCs. (Laurel)

Hints for PLC success (from Dave and Andy leading the Michigan/Detroit area group).

Have partner—Dave said it’s great to have Andy to work with and help with the very large PLC they have
Have regular meeting times
Have assignments/projects for participantsto work on
Have round robins; having each person say things at meetings

Resources:

Global Systems Science Climate Change book newly revised and online (http://www.globalsystemsscience.org)
Digital Earth Watch, with image processing software available through the Global Systems Science website (http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/software/download)
earth2class.org
climate.nasa.gov
mynasadata

Communication Tools:
ReadyTalk (used for this meeting; commercial product)
Adobe Connect
Skype
Google: Voice -|- Groups -|- Sites
WebEx, Elluminate? (commercial products)
Wiki
NSTA’s Learning Center, [http://learningcenter.nsta.org/]

ShirleyLee, host of meeting

Mike Passow past-pres NESTA, runs a project http://earthtoclass.org that runs “Saturday Workshops for Educators” held at Columbia’s Lamont Campus in Palisades N.Y. Mentioned that the next generation standards are incorporating more Technology, Engineering, and Math along with Science (STEM) — that may afford more opportunities for teaching about things like climate change perhaps.

GaryNakagiri (El Cerrito, CA)

-Worked previously with LHS folks

-Currently concerned with future ofscience leadership

-Many of us science folks are retiring.

KevinSavage (Cincinnati, OH – 70minutes away from Indianapolis)

-4 new single subject preps, 1 takenover for someone else

-Haven’t had the time to do more withLifelines, but would love to

whole contingent from school came to NSTA, not far to travel.

desire easy-to-implement course elements, to not have to re-invent the wheel.

AlanGould (Berkeley, CA)

-It’s great to get together in person

FranHess (New York)

-Next year, will be District 4 directorNSTA (NY/PA/NJ)

-I was recently elected, start in June

-Will be at NSTA next year, San Antonio

Andy(Michigan, works with Dave Bydlowski)

-Email from the guy we work with

-Digital Earth Watch, with image processing software available through the Global Systems Science website (http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/software/download), issomething we dowith our teachers in ICCARS. They noticed this product at NASA again. It was developed under NASA grant to GSS and another to Museum of Science Boston called Measuring Vegetation Health(PI: John Pickle). Fits well with ICCARS focus on remote sensing, light, EM spectrum.

Alan:

-Showed Digital Earth Watch website, which is hosted with the GSS website, via shared desktop (ReadyTalk). http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/dew

-Creating online book DEW (digital earthwatch)

-How to make it all one .pdf in casesomeone wants to print it out

-Free image analysis software

Andy: says the software is good, better than ____???, lessexpensive

-Are we going to make an app for DEW?

Alan: That would be a good idea… there was a case of someone a Center for Disease Control (CDC) used DEW software (Analyzin Digital Images) in analysis of impurities in drugs in 3rd world countries.

More on GSS—major revisions in the GSS Climate Change book— quick tour of the book:

We’re making videos, e.g. one on CO2 molecular resonance, with molecular models made of balls on pipe cleaners that students shake to simulate vibration from absorbtion of infrared. Models of CO2, methane,N, O2

Chapter 4—What is global warming—goes into how the debate haschanged over time

Chapter 5 has new audio interview with Pieter Tans, who is in charge of CO2 measuring projects at Mauna Loa and elsewhere around the world. He’s passionate abouthuman impact on climate—very interesting interview.

Chapter 7: more on what the controversy over climate change is all about, distinguishing science Q’s frompolitical Q’s. Revisiting how controversy has changed over the decades.

Chapter 8: consequences chapter has significant update, based on more recent observations

New links to interactives, e.g. Explore Flood maps where you can see how much coastline is submerged with various increases in sea level: flood.firetree.net

Alan disconnected his Readytalk share-desktop so Shirley couldtake over desktop-share as meeting “chair”

Alan:

Framework for discussion—the two big questions that are the essence of our project goals are:

1) determine the best ways of establishing communication among teachers; how to meet over internet/phone

2) find and share the best ways of teaching about climate change in specific high school courses.

How to best teach about climate change in courses we teach

Dial in

Readytalk w/ camera

If we need to, polycom

Andy:

What we like about adobe connect

Chat window is between presenter an anyother members

But nobody can see it,

But on adobe connect, you can haverunning chat b/w everyone

Here, presenter shares chat window

DaveBydlowski:

But it’s a lot of prep with adobe, and Readytalk is so easy

Laurel:

I forgot name of it, but individuals canchat with each other, can send to each other, can capture video andchat (if you set it correctly)

WebEx?or Elluminate? (commercial products)

Cost of phonecall can be issue (Webex or Readytalk have toll-free numbers for participants, paid for by account-holder, but there is question as to whether that uses up minutes on cell-phones)

I work on informal side with teachers,they can do toll free calls from their room phone.

Cris:

I’ve used Google voice to avoid toll. It worked.

Fran: app on the ipad has same thing

DaveB:I used Skype one time, but then somehow lost connection.

Laurel:So how do we keep this going, keep people happy, make it work?

Cris:My group is fading, too.

Alan:

Everybody’shaving that trouble.

DaveB has the most successful group.

Shirley:Summarized many of the comments from the interviews.

Andy:ICCARS, we have 3 sessions, 3:00, 4:30, 6:00, so there are threeopportunities to do it. We get an even distribution.

DaveB:When we made first connection, if we really listened, wewould’ve done 6 am, but there’s a limit. It’s really nice topartner up with Andy. Nice to have another person involved. He hasyoung kids, but we stay at work and more successful. There’s a lotof interest.

Dr.Michael Passow:

LaMont Doughtery at Columbia University

Bring together science teachers with theresearchers

They share their work, some availableonline

“earth2class.org”

Extensive collection of resources

It’s OK now to talk to teachers, wedevelop stuff for/with teachers(?)

Taro Takahashi wants to talk, oceanclimate

Was an NESTA leader… just hadshare-a-thon here

NESTA does a lot.

Alan:

Withteachers only having a few days or week to spend on climate change,how to devote whole meetings to those?

Teachersneed to meet to discuss, in general, but not to meet about all year.

Dr.Passow:

Maybenot spread thin over the year, but time it with more teachers

Fran:

Cango either way

Canbe passionate about cc

Dave:

It’simportant to do once a month, do the whole year

Itgets to our expertise, too

Ifit’s earth science, we may not have expertise

Divinechildhood: whole school with a CC focus

Goalwith program is interdisciplinary, can be touched on in chemistry,biology, science, even religion!

Oneschool is building curriculum around C, thread through whole school

Muchmore of a systems approach

[LizHarrington from VT enteredthe meeting]

….missedconversation while greeting Liz…

Dave:There are only 16 possible evenings in the month… I did 6 meetings.It took a toll on me.

I’dhave a task and goal, which helps people keep involved.

Wefound it’s powerful to have a round robin each time.

Takestime but powerful. They feel a part of it.

Especiallyif it’s something they have to accomplish

Theyfind that helpful

Shirley:The choir comes to the church

Isthat not true with your grant?

Dave:Our grant ends this year, so it will be interesting to see what willhappen

Maybepeople will want to hear from our group

Partnerwith Learning Center, free for teachers, another possible site tocenter us

Everybody’sdoing webinars

Whereis the leadership coming from?

LizHarrington: People are not teaching CC yet, so we were beginners

Dr.Passow: next generation of science standards, not common core

Solook closely at how cc fits in

STEM–wantto have lot more integration of all four areas

Opportunityto develop

Engineeringapproaches to mitigate cc, look at technologies to minimize impact ordeal With what impacts will be

Sonext year or two, opportunity as frameworks are rolled out…

Laurel:So many resources, and here at NSTA, trip over even more

Sohow to keep the resources organized in an accessible way

Whatworks well, what are you looking for

Askthe group as a whole, if you’re looking for something specific

Identifythe holes

Dave:Even the example of the book Alan has on GSS

Idon’t know how many people use it, but when we shared a freeweb-based textbook

climate.nasa.gov…my nasa data… very helpful

KevinSavage: Aquaponics

Indifferent subjects, kids are exposed to different pieces of it alongthe way

AsAP science instructor, CC is 2-2.5 week unit, but I can tool thecourse so I open with it, then thread it through when I talk aboutpollution, landfills, etc.

Sowhether monthly, weekly…for me, I’m mercenary, if there’s noconnection to what I have to teach for AP test, it drops, but if Ican connect with topics, then I will download all the resources I canfind, because I don’t have time to recreate my own stuff. So how tomake CC as foundation that the rest of my APs get built on.

Dave:Mr. Green presenting on CC as theme at 2:00.

Comesback to the PLC as a model.

Ifpeople are by themselves, no connection on a regular basis, tends todrop off the radar.

Alan:One of the things Mike said earlier re STEM… Our project has beensuccessful & unsuccessful. But in terms of the future, I’m firmlyof the belief that this is a paramount in the way of communicating,to not have to travel across town or the country— we have to figure outthe best way to do it.

Andy:I can’t agree with you more, this has been invaluable

Meetingwhole year without having to travel around state

Theyfind it valuable to continue to have these conversations

Certainlycost effective

LizHarrington:

Wealso have a Wiki, if it pops up, then I can read into it, or connectwith that person,

orif I’m not interested, I can file it away

Areminder, keeps me in touch a little more

Dave:Follow thread of discussion

Laurel: suggested Lifelines take advantage of the NSTA’s Learning Center, [http://learningcenter.nsta.org/] for the sake of continuing after the NASA grant period ends. It could broadenresources, let those in the group stretch beyond, potentiating yourresources… Lodging them together, commonly sharing… Each of uscan start building that resource Bank that others can then add to…Professional collaboration.

Alan:Can you tell me more about Learning Center?

Dave:Director is Flavio Menendez

Workingwith us to set up our own state pages

Goto NSTA under PD, there’s Learning Center, just sign up to be part ofit (parent/student/teacher/ anybody)

It’sall free. you set up profile.

PDhas tools, communities, resources (those are 3 main points)

IfI’m interested in CC, I’ll start looking for resources on CC. Therewill be some free articles, but I can also get science teacherarticles, then also K-16 articles, webinars, podcasts.

Alsopeople can add resources to the Learning Center

Ifthere’s a lot of interest in a topic like CC, then there are 10subgroups, within earth science there’s climate, but it could becomeits own group up front

Youmight post an online PLC and this person X will be speaking.

(Ofcourse NSTA would like you to be a member)

Goto NSTA.org, join the Learning Center.

Wecan explore it, discuss it at next PLC…

Passow:Some people want paper resources, vs online resources

Nowwe’re offering online only, and that scares people

Shirley:We know there are technology challenges

Possiblegenerational differences?

Liz:We meet on phone and share screens

Technologycould be a deterrent

Laurel:Until they jump in once

New participants need “permission”to bumble with the technology

DaveB:Mobile is everywhere

Peoplewalking around with iPads

Wedid workshop the other day, of 20 people: 6 iPads, 2 computers

Makesure we can do our work in a mobile environment

Nottie up the computer at home

Kevin:My 20 yr olds

That’stheir world

It’sexpected in the classroom

Nowin our school, we’re moving to electronic on many things

Ifi can’t implement electronically, then what

Flipthe classroom inside out

I’mtweeting here so my kids know what I’m doing

Igot 17 tweets about the catfish that died

It’sthat technology, I’m trying to embrace it, incorporate it intoexercises

Howcan I go back and use my twitter feed and ask real-time questions

Andy:Mobile devices

Thebc generation

Computersare stumbling blocks, the mobile devices are “it”

Computersare for more powerful stuff

Shirley:Are Dave & Andy more successful because they are in the same roomduring meetings and that adds a personal touch that is missing ifevery person is isolated?

LikeClick and Clack on the radio show “Car Talk”? They make you feellike you’re there with them.

_____

2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2012-01-31 • 2012-03-27 • 2012-03-30_NSTA • 2012-05-09

5/9/2012

Recording of meeting: mp4 video (37 min, 100 MB) ; mp3 audio (37 min, 4.5 MB)

Questions for discussion:

1. Has your PLC been active at all in the past 2 months?
If so, how…what topics discussed, recommendations, new resources, ….

Alan Gould: the leaders group has not been active in the last 2 months. We are meeting only bi-monthly.

David Bydlowski: Our PLC has been active during the last two months. We met: March 12 [and] April 16
Our next meeting is May 14. I have attached the PowerPoints that we used in each meeting. They can also be downloaded at: http://resa.net/climatechange, approximately a third down the page. Our recordings are also available on ReadyTalk. Let me know if anyone needs the links for these.

Fran Hess: March
    Between Teachers CC PLC:
        During the April meetings we reviewed and discussed websites that served as resources on
        Human Health and Climate Change Relationships.
        In addition we reviewed an article that highlighted one organization working against
        the climate change educational process:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2012-02-25/think-tank-leaks/53235836/1
        We also discussed the use of listserv to try to increase participation.
    iPad CC PLC
        Shared some apps of interest.
        Discussed article noted above and how to deal with climate change skeptics
        Discussed interest in possible PASCO iPad probe presentation.
        Reviewed idea to try to use listserv to increase participation during this busy time of year
    March /April
    The listserv was setup and tested and some initial posts were made to get participant without much success.
    I did ask for some response to make sure it was working and it appeared to be functional but not necessarily the
    resolution to the problem of low participation.
    Last school year schedule meetings will be
         May 7   Between Teachers CC PLC
         May 8   iPad CC PLC
         May 9   PASCO Presentation

2. What new resource(s) have you come across that would be useful to use for teaching about climate change in high school science course(s)?

Alan Gould: see item B in Announcements below….

David Bydlowski: As far as resources for high school courses, I am tediously working on getting our resources up online. This process will take the better part of May, but you can see the structure and a sample or two at:
http://www.resa.net/curriculum/curriculum/science/professionaldevelopment/climatechange/modules-and-units/
It will take a while to complete the work, but it will get done. As I said, it will change daily through May as I try to get all of the work online, then reedit and reedit. [Also:]
Climate Change Minute Podcasts: http://climatechangeminute.podbean.com
GLISA Connect — Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments — http://glisa.umich.edu
GLOBE Student Climate Research Campaign — http://globe.gov/scrc
TED Talk – James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change — http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html

Cris DeWolf: CAMEL (http://www.camelclimatechange.org/) has some interesting resources that could be adapted to use at the high school level.
It is not done yet, but I am also working on designing an online course called “Our Changing Climate” for a Georgia Tech NASA ePDN class I am currently taking. I will share the URL of the course (delivered via CourseSites by BlackBoard) when it is done.
There are also some webinars on climate change topics coming up via the NSTA Learning Center. I have registered for Web Seminar: Natural and Anthropogenic Climate Impacts as Evidenced in Ice Cores, May 2, 2012
May 2, 2012, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Fran Hess:

http://www.bucknell.edu/weather/climographer.html Download this shareware (this was on the earth science sites of the week email) … click on the world map and pull up a climograph for that location (except for apprently Iceland and Antarctica). This does a nice job of showing the effect of large bodies of water on seasonal temps compared to an inland location as well the effects of ocean currents on opposite sides of a continent. One can also type in specific coordinates as well as click on the map.
A source of some good climate change related videos produced by PICS, Pacific Institute of Climate Solutions, was shared and can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/PICSClimateInsights

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ANNOUNCEMENTS:

A. New category of Lifelines Leaders. Starting this week (May 1) we are seeking a new category of Lifelines PLC leaders, not focused on locality or regional membership, but focused on type of high school science course. We seek leaders for each of the following course types: Environmental Science, Earth Science, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and others. These new course-focused leaders will be responsible for:
—collecting communications from Lifelines PLC members concerning best ways of incorporating climate change in that particular course.
—summarizing (on Lifelines Course Outlines website) recommendations for how to include climate change in that particular course.

This is a one-year commitment for which leaders will receive $500 stipend. The process of collecting and making recommendations has already begun on the Lifelines Course Outlines site – https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelinescourses/.

Existing PLC Leaders are also eligible to be a course-focused leader. Contact me if you’re interested.

B. New climate change education resources posted on Lifelines Teacher Resources area (https://sites.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/lifelinescourses/teaching-resources):

—CAMEL (Climate, Adaptation, Mitigation, E-Learning) is a free, comprehensive, interdisciplinary, multimedia resource for educators, providing over 200 interdisciplinary topic areas and numerous resource types to give the educator the tools they need to teach about climate change– causes, consequences, solutions and actions. http://www.camelclimatechange.org/

—National Center for Science Education (NCSE) climate website: “Long respected for its work in defending and supporting the teaching of evolution in the public schools, in 2012 NCSE launched this new initiative to defend and support the teaching of climate change.” http://ncse.com/climate

—American Planning Association Policy Guide on Planning & Climate Change. – [PDF] Adopted April 27, 2008 Updated April 11, 2011. http://www.planning.org/policy/guides/adopted/climatechangeexec.htm

—PolarTrec (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating) is a program in which K-12 teachers spend 2-6 weeks participating in hands-on field research experiences in the polar regions. Site has journals from teachers and great photos, e.g. from Airborne Survey Of Polar Ice. http://www.polartrec.com/

—Weather Underground Climate Change center, has resources to understand how the climate is changing both globally and in their local neighborhoods. The Local Climate Change feature allows one to see how temperature and precipitation have changed over the past 100+ years at the nearest station with a long period of measurements. Predictions from climate models on what the next 100 years may bring are overlaid for each station. http://www.wunderground.com/climate

VIDEOS
—Climate Insights videos, shown at the AAAS meeting in Vancouver — from Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions http://www.youtube.com/PICSClimateInsights
—Sun Come Up. Oscar-nominated movie about how climate change is impacting indigenous cultures and island communities, in particular, a small island community in the South Pacific Ocean – the Carteret Islands. http://www.suncomeup.com/
—Chasing Ice – the story about the work of James Balog, Extreme Ice Survey, and his quest to document the retreat of arctic glaciers through his year-round cameras taking time lapse photography. http://chasingice.com/
—The Island President …film about Dr. Mohamed Waheed, president of the Maldives and his efforts to encourage climate change policies internationally for the survival of his homeland. http://theislandpresident.com/
—Things Happen …from 350.org. http://www.climatedots.org/thingshappen/

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2010 -|- 2011 -|- 2012

2012-01-31 • 2012-03-27 • 2012-03-30_NSTA • 2012-05-09