Wonderful Experience

After summer travel and my regional QuarkNet meeting I am finally home for a few days. I am gearing up for the new school year and ready to integrate the things I learned at ISE into my curriculums.

I really appreciate the opportunity I was given to attend ISE in Greece. Each day we were presented with inquiry based education ideas and online resources we could use in our classroom.  Each of the attending teachers were to draw up a new lesson and use some of these resources.  I enjoyed using Celestia for my new lesson. I look forward to integrating it into my class. I hope to be able to improve my lesson once I present it to my students for the first time. I also value having access to the many new lessons from the other teachers in the workshop. We deposited our lessons on the Open Discovery Space which is a rich resource for teachers (http://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/ ). Many of the topics presented by the teachers are applicable to my classes.

The international aspect of the workshop was amazing. I always find it so enriching to talk with people of various cultures.  Getting to know more QuarkNet teachers and other physics and astronomy teachers from Europe and Portugal was a great experience.  With modern communications and transportation, the world seems a little cozier and I can embrace the uniqueness of each culture and individuals from all over the world. Programs at CERN exemplify this.

Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful new school year!