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![Previous (earlier) Story](/images/sty-down.gif "How "The Big Project" Came To Michigan"){kind=small} Previous: How "The Big Project" Came To Michigan |  Next: In Brief |
NEWINGTON, CT Dec 11, 2002 -- With the addition of 14 new schools in December, the ARRL Education and Technology Program is up to a total of 40 participating schools. That's more than double the number of schools involved since the program's launch in February.
 Students at Central Square (New York) Middle School unpack the ARRL Technical Library. The books were purchased for the school by a local radio club, in keeping with the no-cost to school design of The Big Project. |
 Three students at Central High in Greenfield, Indiana, fire up the rig provided to their school by the ARRL Education and Technology Program. |
 Richwood (Louisiana) High School student Johntae Lee, left, participates in the Simulated Emergency Test exercises November 9, assisted by Todd Coble. Northeast Louisiana's scenario included a landfalling hurricane, Hurricane Carolyn. Two repeaters were used for local traffic, storm reporting and regional traffic. The school setup, W5RAM, included three scanners, a handy-talkie and a base station. |
 Dave Conden's, KI7YP, fifth- and sixth-grade class at Franklin Elementary in Kirkland, Washington, is all ham -- every single child pictured above holds an Amateur Radio license. |
 Middle schoolers score DXCC: Some 30 youngsters who belong to the Blacksburg Middle School Amateur Radio Club (K4BMS) in Southwest Virginia--a new Big Project school--already have qualified for DXCC and the IOTA 100 Islands Award by assisting sixth-grade science and math teacher Rich Beamish, K4FCP, who serves as the control op. Beamish says about 20 of his youngsters are actively seeking their ham tickets. More than half of the club members are female, and the students do their own logging and QSLing. He gets help from local hams too. |
The 13 pilot schools will be receiving complete station equipment, a curriculum and a technical library either in late January or early February 2003, said ARRL Education and Technology Program coordinator Jerry Hill, KH6HU. One other school that already uses Amateur Radio in the classroom will receive a $500 progress grant.
More than new schools is being added to the Education and Technology Program, informally known as "The Big Project." Hill said that as the program nears its first full year in existence, curriculum evaluation is taking place.
"We have a draft of the curriculum and we'll be testing it in all of the schools, asking them to add their lessons and activities and report back," Hill said. "Then we'll get a final draft out for June and post it on the Web later in the year. The new curriculum will be out there for anyone to use."
Hill said that each year the curriculum will be updated, so that the Education and Technology Program can offer a continually better offering to teachers and students. One of the first major efforts will be to split the text of the curriculum into two parts, elementary and secondary. That way, Hill said, the program can offer developmentally appropriate levels of instruction while still teaching similar concepts to all participants.
Teachers involved with the Education and Technology Program are all connected via an e-mail reflector, on which they can share thoughts and experiences with the program, as well as set up schedules for contacts. Hill said the idea is to coordinate more than a time for a QSO for the participating schools. "We want to put together operating activities where the kids can all be involved together, perhaps within the existing contest structure," he said. Besides contesting, possibilities exist for a range of activities, such as special event operating, trans-regional or transcontinental balloon tracking, or even remotely controlled robotics experiments carried on coast-to-coast using VHF over the Internet.
"The idea behind coordinating operating activities is to deepen the understanding of what is possible in communications, such as how NASA remotely controls by radio the surveyors and robots it sends to Mars," Hill said. "Nothing we're talking about here is really new (for classroom experimentation), but in the past, often these projects have been done in isolation."
The Education and Technology Program plans to further expand the options teachers have to share ideas and activities with an HF net. Currently, Hill heads across the ARRL Headquarters parking lot twice a week to operate W1AW for an hour, completing schedules with schools in the program. He said that a net--or maybe several nets, seeing as the US is spread across five time zones--would go a long way toward accomplishing the program's next set of goals for sharing information. "Really, we're just scratching the surface of what can be done," he stated. "Over the years, we will build a series of projects, activities and added curriculum components to the program."
Initiated in 2000 by ARRL President Jim Haynie, W5JBP, the Education and Technology Program aims to use Amateur Radio to improve the total educational experience and to also create a skilled technological workforce for America's future. Also, the program hopes to ensure the growth of Amateur Radio by bringing instruction, practical operating, tradition and fun to a new generation of potential hams. The first school to take part in the program was DeGolyer Elementary School in Dallas, Texas. DeGolyer, which tested the program beginning in 2001, got major-market media exposure December 9 as it was featured in a Dallas Morning News article. In less than two years, the program has turned out 30 new young hams, and several parents, under the direction of teacher Sanlyn Kent, KD5LXO.
One of the key components of the program is the involvement of local Amateur Radio clubs. While the ARRL provides a complete station--including radios, antennae, cables and power supplies--to schools, it does not directly give schools the technical library. The League provides the 18 selected ARRL books as cost, allowing an area club to purchase the $313.75 library for just $200.
"With the addition of 14 new schools in December, the ARRL Education and Technology Program is up to a total of 40 participating schools." |
Hill said that not only is the idea to make participating in the program a no-cost issue for schools, it helps connect the budding Amateur Radio students with the established ham community. "Some of the teachers, maybe new hams themselves, may not have the technical background in all areas of the curriculum," he said. "A local club, partnering with a school, can provide that assistance. They're not just buying books for kids; they're building ties."
For an example of how local hams step in to help, see the
ARRLWeb news story "How "The Big
Project" Came To Michigan". A detailed description of the ARRL Education
and Technology Program can be found on page 52 of the December 2002 issue of QST.
| Previous: How "The Big Project" Came To Michigan | Next: In Brief |
