Tonight at 7pm EST we’re having an online chat in the TappedIn online learning community - http://tappedin.org. We’ll be working our way through the November 2008 issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine. If you can’t join us, you can see “our trip” below. We meet the first Thursday of each month - hope you can join us in December.

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TappedIn Tour: Planning a Polar Festival

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears

November 6, 2008 – 7pm EST

Looking for an exciting way to incorporate polar science into your curriculum? A polar festival might just be your answer! Festivals are flexible, informal learning events that engage students as they learn science through hands-on activity. Discover planning guides, suggested activities, and ways to incorporate literacy into your event in the November issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears.

Let’s go to November’s issue - http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/issue/index.php?date=November2008. You’ll see that we have five departments and then columns within each department. By the way – all issues are laid out the same way.

Let’s go to the department – Professional Learning – and click on the article “Planning a Polar Festival” (http://tinyurl.com/674s9d).

Read the “Ideas for Festivals” section – do any of you do similar “festivals” but on different topics?

This article also includes ideas for Getting Started and Planning Resources.

So let’s get started. A major task in planning a festival is selecting activities. We’ve included three articles to help you choose activities.

First, let’s look at the article on hands-on science activities - http://tinyurl.com/5b5rsn. Spend a few minutes looking at the breadth of activities – then report back on one that you find interesting.

Now let’s look at the article on polar arts and crafts - http://tinyurl.com/63xzpf. Spend a few minutes looking at the breadth of activities. Would your students have fun doing them?

We also have a bookshelf - http://tinyurl.com/65g5r8 - with activity books and teacher’s guides in case you need more ideas.

We also have our own non-fiction stories for K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 students. They come in text, illustrated, and electronic versions - http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/information.php?topic=stories. Click on the page and look at the different topics. Which ones sound interesting to you?

Finally, we’ve provided ideas for involving the community - http://tinyurl.com/6l48p3. Any of these sound interesting?

One example is co-hosting a festival with a nearby middle school. Middle school students could research, plan, and design the activities (using, for example, ANDRILL’s Flexhibit materials - http://www.andrill.org/flexhibit/flexhibit/index.html) and elementary students could participate.

There is also list of resources - http://tinyurl.com/5on5uc - from polar research projects that can supplement your activities.

We hope you’ll plan your own special event and share it with us! Please contact Jessica Fries-Gaither (fries-gaither.1@osu.edu) to talk about possibilities.