Ideas, ideas, and more ideas..

The NASA Explorer school GAVRT teacher opportunity has come to an end today.  It has been such a wonderful experience to share this with other wonderful teachers from across the country.  We shared so many best practices and I think it is safe to say we learned a lot from each other.  We also had amazing scientists share with us their research and how we can get our students excited about space science.  The coordinators from NES and GAVRT were equally wonderful.  They had us engaged, excited, and collaborating.  Some highlights were going for a hike one morning before we started our fun filled day, learning about the Radio JOVE project (http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/), and of course seeing the radio telescopes in person.  From the entire experience I am so excited to start developing some short term and long term projects that involve using the GAVRT radio telescope.  I really want to share what I have learned with my fellow teachers at my school to see where we could go as a group (6-12).  I also want to see what the interest would be in the radio JOVE project, because the kit is SO COOL!  However, coming into this year at a new school and then heading to Alaska for most of September is going to fill my plate.  BUT!  That still leaves a lot of the school year to fill up with amazing hands-on projects!  I hope I get teacher buy in because it would be great to get radio telescope research going across the curriculum and across multiple grade levels.  We will just have to wait and see, but I am very optimistic!  On a side note I did pass my amateur radio technician test last week and just got my call sign, KF7RCV.  Cheers!