The Advanced Technology Environmental and Energy Center (ATEEC) releases seven new virtual field trip activities today. Building on last year's ATEEC Fellows Institute, attendees (environmental science instructors from high school and two year colleges) flew to Alaska again to explore fossil fuels and alternative fuel options there.
Utilizing another one of ATEEC's products, An Illustrated Guide to Creating Virtual Field Trips Using FREE Google Services, instructors learned how to build virtual field trips with nothing more than a GPS unit, digital camera and camcorder. This was done through the use of FREE Google tools such as Google Earth, Blogger and YouTube. Teachers who utilize these tools can capitalize on student technology skills while still engaging them in the outside world through GPS and GIS. Imagine giving an assignment to students that asks them to create a virtual field trip and present it to the class. How many higher learning skills are being captured there - (experience, design, development, presentation) all while bridging the real and digital world.
The ATEEC Fellows Institute is a professional development workshop for faculty and is a joint effort by both the University of Northern Iowa and ATEEC. Offering new skills to environmental and energy instructors allows them to take these types of experiences back to their classroom and engage their students more. It plays a role in getting students more interested in math and science.
Ken Walz, a chemistry and engineering instructor at the Madison Area Technical College had this to say, "Thanks again for a really great experience. I think I can speak for both Russ and myself that we learned a ton of new tech skills that we did not have previously, and certainly came away with a lot more knowledge about the petroleum industry and renewable energy in general. Since this was my first experience with ATEEC Fellows, I should also note that I was very impressed with the program. I will definitely recommend your work to others..."
The final products created by the 2008 ATEEC Fellows are visually stunning, classroom ready and are downloadable from the ATEEC website at www.ateec.org Teachers guides for each Google Earth virtual field trip are also included.
To learn more about the ATEEC Fellows or to be a part of it next year, check out the ATEEC Fellows website.
2008 ATEEC Fellows are listed below.
- Marlene Morales
- Tom Pederson
- DJ Jin
- Karen Merritt
- Roy Sofield
- Michael Marchiondo
- Laurie Trotta
- Suzanne Banas
- Ken Walz
- Kevin King
- Susan Wingate
- Louis LaPierre
- Wendy Lawton
- Catherine Ryan
- Russel Smith
- Roger Everhart (Fellows Mentor)
- Jeff Newmeister (Fellows Mentor)
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