QuarkNet at ISE Blog
Submitted by ShaneWood
on Thursday, June 30, 2016 - 15:45
Science is a journey, not an event.
On the first day, our fearless QuarkNet leader Marge Bardeen reminded us that science is a journey, not an event. We sometimes treat it as a list of facts to accept, and that's often how our students see it. But in order to make science interesting for our students, and hopefully make them into budding young scientists themselves, we need to focus more on how this was developed, why it's important, and so on. It's not good enough to just say "This is Newton's 1st law," we have to say "Newton's law is so cool because of _____, why is that important?"
That' why I am realy happy to have come to this program. I don't just have access to a whole bunch of cool activities, I have talked with people about them and attachd amazing experiences to them. Attaching a scenario or story to something makes it much easier for me to remember. I can think of this workshop as one where I made friends with more QuarkNet teachers, saw the Parthenon and the Sanctuary of Poseidon, had authentic Greek meals late into the night, and went swimming in the Aegean Sea.
Seeing as others have already posted their beautiful pics, I will post a picture of something else. To help you remember me, I was the one who didn't have his checked luggage for the majority of the trip. Apparently it took a different journey than I did! Luckily it showed up on Thursday morning, so here's a picture of that :)
ISE in Greece
This has been a great week and full of new experiences. It is very encouraging to meet with fellow teachers in Europe and find that we have a lot of similar goals and desires for science education. They have a great foundation set up with ISE to lead to lots of future collaboration between not only the EU but also with teachers here in the US. There is some learning curves needed to bridge the gap between how they phrase things and approach things versus our American methods. When you get past the initial phraseology and such then you see that there are many similarities. We should look at inviting some of them back to the US and look at what we are doing also so that we can combine all of our best practices. We have learned a lot about the universe this week and many new ways to use telescopes and web interactions that I look forward to bringing back and sharing with collegues in the States. The ISE portal is an excellent method for presenting student driven projects and inquiring learning that has been created by the teacher and then given to the students to work through on their own and still have teacher driven questions and guidance to a little or a lot. This is something that I will be using in my classroom. The time to also experience some of the Greek culture was also a once in a lifetime experience that I encourage more people to take advantage of in the future.
ISE 2016 Marathon, Greece 7 15 2016
Our last day here we are presenting the educational senarios we created! It has been a very informative and inspiring conference! I am attaching some more pictures!
QuarkNet in Marathon, Greece. Day 5
Hi everyone,
It has been a wonderful experience to visit the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, the Acropolis Museum in Athens, and the Parthenon, Erechtheion with the Caryatids, and the Propylaea on the Acropolis itself. Incredibly beneficial were the local guides to provide context and background. I noticed that tourists outside of our group would often join our huddle around our tour guide with us to enjoy the stories.
We have also been making new friends, both QuarkNet and European, and learning about Inquiry-based learning from a European perspective. The portal we're using is different than other formats I've seen, but it's intriguing and shows great potential.
Thank you QuarkNet for an amazing adventure!
Temple of Poseiden
Approaching sunset at Cape Sounion
LEGO model of Acropolis (Acropolis Museum)
Acropolis Museum
Parthenon
Erechtheion
Some of the QuarkNet members at the foot of the Parthenon
ISE 2016 Marathon, Greece
What an awesome experience to be in the Inspiring Summer Education (ISE) Conference in Greece! It is amazing to be discussing inquiry science education, the latest online resources, and a range of topics from online robotic telescopes to particle accelerators in Greece the birthplace of Aristotle, Socrates, Democritos, Eratosthenes,..... It was a a special treat to have inspiring speakers such as Quarknet's own Marge and Bill Bardeen, CERN scientists Christine Kourkoumelis and by virtual visit at ATLAS Ioannis Gialas and many others! We composed our own inquiry based educational senarios and posted them on the ISE Portal. We also visited the engineering marvels of the Acropolis of Athens and the temple of Poseidon in Cape Sounion.
A special shoutout to Quarknet and Rutgers Quarknet!!!
Brunner - Greece ISE 2016 - Discovering the Cosmos
Finally getting to the blog on day 2 of the ISE experience. We had a great Sunday night intro and a great first full day yesterday.
Highlights: Dr. William Bardeen's talk about his father, the only two times physics Nobel Laureate.
The visit to Poseidon's Temple followed by a dinner under the stars at the foot of the Temple hill.
I will attach photos because hosting and linking them will take more time than I have at the moment.
Hello out there
Just thought I'd try this outand see how it works. It took a while to get used to the ISE group site but I think I've posted what they want. Anyway I'm looking forward to the trip. Anybody else flying direct to Athens from Phili? I teach MS math and science in Dallas and work with QuarkNet out of SMU. So far this summer I've done a STEM week at WKU, Space Camp in Huntsville, and just got back from Mesa Verde doing some archaeology through NEH. Big summer of PD for me. See y'all soon.
Bruce