Here I am again months later and no more information. But wow have I learned a lot in the last few months.
Teaching has been awesome and I have really found my niche.
I have spent the last two weeks at Oklahoma State University studying High Energy Physics through a program called quarknet. It has been tremendous and difficult all at the same time. I learned some really good things about the Nature of Science and feel that I am beginning to come to an understanding about that particular facet of my teaching journey. Not to say that I am a pro, but at least I am making progress.
As an update, I was rehired on a permanent contract at PC High this year. I was really excited to be able to tell my family that I had been successful this year and was going to continue there.
I have started a Physics and Astronomy club at PC High. It will probably begin to revolve most around the cosmic ray detector and the 12 inch telescope. I hope to generate some real interest and start doing some activities in which the kids might be interested.
We shall see.
14 June 2008
28 December 2007
Well...
here it is the end of the first semester of teaching and I haven't been on this blog more than a handful of times! So much for reflection on a regular basis. I have been doing a lot of reflecting lately to prep for next semester. I will have many of the same kids from my Pre-AP physics class in the full blown AP class. That will be a bit of a challenge. Some of these students are so intelligent that I have difficulty challenging them. I need to get the fall semester closed out and look ahead to January 8th. It's going to be awesome. I am so much better prepared for this coming time than I was back in August. Not that I am old hat in the teaching game, but I have formed some really good relationships with a few students and I look forward to deepening them. Bring it on!
Check the links sections for a photo blog that I have recently started thanks to my new Digital SLR camera.
Check the links sections for a photo blog that I have recently started thanks to my new Digital SLR camera.
23 July 2007
it's been a while
Since I have blogged on here. So here goes...
This past weekend our youth pastor, Jeff Smith, brought a wonderful message at Northview. It was the "gospel according to U2". It was part of a continuing series entitled (strangely enough) "The Gospel Acccording to". It really had an impact on me. In the words of Bono, the lead singer of U2, "Africa is bursting into flames and we are all standing around with a water bucket". Basically, what am I doing with my time to help others? Not how am I witnessing to others, not how am I influencing others, but how am I helping others? The Church of the Nazarene was built on the basic precepts of what many might call Social Justice. That name always sounded strange to me until this weekend. I am better able to understand just what that means and I am beginning to understand more fully what that should look like in my life. I need to reassess my priorities and look for a way to help someone. That may mean I lose some of my "personal" time, but I think the reward will be worth the "sacrifice". Thanks Jeff for letting God use you as an instrument to speak to me.
This past weekend our youth pastor, Jeff Smith, brought a wonderful message at Northview. It was the "gospel according to U2". It was part of a continuing series entitled (strangely enough) "The Gospel Acccording to". It really had an impact on me. In the words of Bono, the lead singer of U2, "Africa is bursting into flames and we are all standing around with a water bucket". Basically, what am I doing with my time to help others? Not how am I witnessing to others, not how am I influencing others, but how am I helping others? The Church of the Nazarene was built on the basic precepts of what many might call Social Justice. That name always sounded strange to me until this weekend. I am better able to understand just what that means and I am beginning to understand more fully what that should look like in my life. I need to reassess my priorities and look for a way to help someone. That may mean I lose some of my "personal" time, but I think the reward will be worth the "sacrifice". Thanks Jeff for letting God use you as an instrument to speak to me.
24 June 2007
MTPE Day 8 & 9
Today was the best yet! We got to fly airplanes this morning. It was so awesome. I have not flown in about 18 years (I mean actually piloted a plane). The last time I did I was in the Navy and I soloed for the first time. Our instructor asked if anyone had any experience and I told him that I did, but it had been a very long time. He let me take off and actually navigate to Lindsey. I told him that I would prefer not to fly in the pattern and wanted him to do and he was cool with that. We had passengers and so I thought it would be best for them if I didn't actually land the plane, but it was better left to Chase's capable hands. This guy just commissioned with the Army and is waiting on a billet for flight school. He was a great, patient instructor. He encouraged me to get back into flying. I have given it a lot of thought and will probably try to figure a way to do that as soon as it is fiscally possible. That may be a very long time from now. That was all we did on Friday, but it was great to spend some time in the air again. If we had waited another 30 minutes, we probably would have had to wait out some weather, as it was quickly deteriorating to IFR conditions towards the end of our flight.
Saturday was just an award time and evaluation time. It was basically an hour of signing thank you cards, and almost not worth the drive to Norman. Oh well, it's over and I am a different person for having attended the workshop. It was great to get some ideas for my classroom and the opportunity to fly. Thanks NASA Space Grant Consortium for the opportunity! Pictures of me as Pilot in Command are coming soon!
Saturday was just an award time and evaluation time. It was basically an hour of signing thank you cards, and almost not worth the drive to Norman. Oh well, it's over and I am a different person for having attended the workshop. It was great to get some ideas for my classroom and the opportunity to fly. Thanks NASA Space Grant Consortium for the opportunity! Pictures of me as Pilot in Command are coming soon!
21 June 2007
MTPE Day 7
Day 7 is in the books. We visited the National Weather Center in Norman, OK this morning. It was, possibly, the most interesting thing we have done all week. Can you say Masters in Meteorology? Oh man, that would be awesome!
The National Weather Service Building here is an extension of the OU School of Meteorology. They are housed in a Federal Building sharing joint custody of it. We started our tour at the top of the building and worked our way down. It was interesting to see the pecking order in the building with the seniors and graduate students on the top, juniors on the next floor down, and so on. I was amazed at the sheer amount of technology crammed into that building. They have a false floor between each floor simply for networking. We got to see the Federal part of the building where they issued every type of warning and watch for the contiguous United States. All from one room! We also saw the room where the Oklahoma WS conducts their operations as well. We saw new technology that is barely even in the field, as far as instrumentation is concerned. We saw some new sonar they are testing that is simply upward looking sonar to help with weather forecasting. The most amazing thing about the school is that the students get to go out into the field to conduct research. Not just graduate students either, I mean every student! I must say, there are so many disciplines here at OU in which one could be interested. Which one to choose? I mean I only have one life, there are a limited amount of degrees I can learn!
On the pictures below, notice how much glass is in the building. The entire southwest side of the building is glass. Guess which way the predominant severe weather patterns are in Oklahoma? This place is state of the art, as you can see from the pictures, they moved into the building in September of 2006. Everything, and I mean everything in this place is nice!
National Weather Service, Norman Oklahoma.
"Total Understanding of the Sky", the apparent motto of the NWS.
Upward looking sonar to map the atmosphere. This is actually in a classroom...of course that is an instrumentation classroom and it's outside!
The National Weather Service forecast room
A Mobile command post, where the fun really happens!
The National Weather Service Building here is an extension of the OU School of Meteorology. They are housed in a Federal Building sharing joint custody of it. We started our tour at the top of the building and worked our way down. It was interesting to see the pecking order in the building with the seniors and graduate students on the top, juniors on the next floor down, and so on. I was amazed at the sheer amount of technology crammed into that building. They have a false floor between each floor simply for networking. We got to see the Federal part of the building where they issued every type of warning and watch for the contiguous United States. All from one room! We also saw the room where the Oklahoma WS conducts their operations as well. We saw new technology that is barely even in the field, as far as instrumentation is concerned. We saw some new sonar they are testing that is simply upward looking sonar to help with weather forecasting. The most amazing thing about the school is that the students get to go out into the field to conduct research. Not just graduate students either, I mean every student! I must say, there are so many disciplines here at OU in which one could be interested. Which one to choose? I mean I only have one life, there are a limited amount of degrees I can learn!
On the pictures below, notice how much glass is in the building. The entire southwest side of the building is glass. Guess which way the predominant severe weather patterns are in Oklahoma? This place is state of the art, as you can see from the pictures, they moved into the building in September of 2006. Everything, and I mean everything in this place is nice!
National Weather Service, Norman Oklahoma.
"Total Understanding of the Sky", the apparent motto of the NWS.
Upward looking sonar to map the atmosphere. This is actually in a classroom...of course that is an instrumentation classroom and it's outside!
The National Weather Service forecast room
A Mobile command post, where the fun really happens!19 June 2007
MTPE Day 6
Today was a low-key day. I think everyone was glad of that. We have all been rather tired at day's end the past week. The classes are just the type that make you tired at the end of the day. Some days are long and that doesn't help either. We simply worked today on web-based resources for teaching aerospace type education in our classrooms. We are giving presentations tomorrow over a particular subject of our own choosing.
I have chosen to present Stellarium to the teachers I am in class with. I think it is a great tool for any age student. I presented last year at National Science Teacher's Association conference in Salt Lake City about this program. It is a free program available here. Basically, it is a planetarium program you can use in your classroom or home to see what the sky would look like from any location on Earth or within the Solar System, on any date in history or the future. More about it tomorrow.
I basically just browsed the web today looking at the possibility of starting a Civil Air Patrol squadron at the school. It looks like a lot of work, so I probably won't be doing that any time soon. I have to get my "teaching legs" under me before I take on any type of extra curricular activity. It seems like it would be interesting and fun, though.
Here is a screen shot from Stellarium. Go download it and start looking at the night sky today!
I have chosen to present Stellarium to the teachers I am in class with. I think it is a great tool for any age student. I presented last year at National Science Teacher's Association conference in Salt Lake City about this program. It is a free program available here. Basically, it is a planetarium program you can use in your classroom or home to see what the sky would look like from any location on Earth or within the Solar System, on any date in history or the future. More about it tomorrow.
I basically just browsed the web today looking at the possibility of starting a Civil Air Patrol squadron at the school. It looks like a lot of work, so I probably won't be doing that any time soon. I have to get my "teaching legs" under me before I take on any type of extra curricular activity. It seems like it would be interesting and fun, though.
Here is a screen shot from Stellarium. Go download it and start looking at the night sky today!
MTPE Day 5
Monday morning and we are talking aeronautics! I love aerospace education. I have long held the dream of being a pilot. Either private, military, or otherwise. Some of you may or may not know that, but my initial plans out of high school were to finish college and then return to the Navy to be a pilot. Fortunately, I married the most wonderful woman in the world, and my eyes are now too bad to be a military pilot. So, I guess things worked out for the best!
Anyway, we did a mini ground school today. In case you don't know, ground school is the initial phase or education part of becoming a pilot. We talked about how you find out about the weather. We talked about how to plan a trip. We learned about fuel consumption and how to figure it. We found out about how to find our true ground speed based on winds aloft forecasts and then how to re-calculate it based on our actual winds once we are airborne. Now I can't imagine taking out that gigantic chart in the cockpit of a small aircraft, but I guess you do what you've got to do.
The real question here is when do we get to fly? That comes on Friday and I will definitely have pictures of me in the left seat of a Piper Warrior.
This is a picture of the type of aircraft we will be doing orientation flights in on Friday.
Anyway, we did a mini ground school today. In case you don't know, ground school is the initial phase or education part of becoming a pilot. We talked about how you find out about the weather. We talked about how to plan a trip. We learned about fuel consumption and how to figure it. We found out about how to find our true ground speed based on winds aloft forecasts and then how to re-calculate it based on our actual winds once we are airborne. Now I can't imagine taking out that gigantic chart in the cockpit of a small aircraft, but I guess you do what you've got to do.
The real question here is when do we get to fly? That comes on Friday and I will definitely have pictures of me in the left seat of a Piper Warrior.
This is a picture of the type of aircraft we will be doing orientation flights in on Friday.
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