Angelo Cerchione (angelo@boone.net)
Wed, 23 Dec 1998 22:57:42 -0500
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 22:57:42 -0500 From: Angelo Cerchione <angelo@boone.net> Subject: [ifets] News Release
Hi:
I know how devoted your group is to distance learning, new resources and
the use of the Internet as a positive force. Therefore, I decided to
send you the attached article.
Here's a wonderful piece of news coming from the deck of the Barque
Picton Castle and the overseas distance-learning team from Tidal
Passages. Please offer this news release to your audience as it tells a
great story about the way in which behind-the-scenes resources are
forming in support of teachers and their distance learning programs.
If you have any suggestions, reservations, etc., please feel free to
contact me and I see to your wishes.
Thank you,
Angelo Cerchione
Director of Information
The Barque Picton Castle
-- December 24, 1998 For Immediate Release Word Count: 809Rendezvous at Christmas: Sailors and Educators Link Up
By Angelo Cerchione
MAHE, SEYCHELLES, INDIAN OCEAN -- When the Picton Castle arrives in the Seychelles on Christmas Day, four members of the Tidal Passages' distance learning teaching team will be waiting to board. Daniel Hornstein (biologist), Crista Mellican and Kate Menser (marine biologists) and Linda Smith (anthropologist/archaelogist) arrived in the islands earlier this week and are already at work ashore. Meanwhile, in Poughkeepsie, New York, a large, stay-at-home team of educators, technicians and graphic artists are at work distributing the team's first lessons to the "New World."
The Tidal Passages' long-distance learning program is the brainchild of schoolteacher Lorna Metzger who in a self-funded expedition aboard the Tall Ship Alvei last year field-tested her innovative ideas. In short order she had several hundred schools around the world actively interacting with schools in the South Seas by way of the Internet. Through her program she was able to shorten the 12,000 miles between corresponding schoolchildren to the length of an email. Today, with the backing and support of WinStar for Education, Lorna's overseas team has embarked upon an adventure in education that will change the way in which geographically separated peoples learn, eliminate barriers, and dispel ignorance.
The first fruits of the team's labors are already in evidence. If one travels to the Tidal Passages' site (http://www.tidalpassages.com), they will find that the newly arrived team has been patrolling with island park rangers, meeting schoolchildren, looking in on the hawksbill turtles and giant tortoises, and getting the lowdown on the world's largest fish: the 60-foot, 60-ton gentle giant, the whale shark. In fact, multitudes of children are still excited over a chat session held recently with Dave Rowat, a whale shark expert, stationed on the island of Mahe.
There was a time when educators passively awaited word from far-ranging explorers, travelers and soldiers before creating pale, second-hand accounts. At this very moment Hornstein, Mellican, Menser and Smith are capturing and transmitting instructional material on the fly. No longer will the exotic butterfly from a foreign land come to us stilled by the lepidopterist's crucifying pins. Today, Daniel and Crista and Kate and Linda can fly it through cyberspace instantly and directly to your children who will come to know butterflies and moths and skippers as living pages in the textbook of now.
When the Tidals are not in port generating lessons during the next six months, they will become at-sea crew members: standing watches, pulling details, furling sails. But even in mid-ocean, the educational mission will still move forward as the team takes weather data, conducts tests, uses the sciences to parse, explain and solve -- all in an effort to lay this rich feast before schoolchildren everywhere.
As the Picton Castle makes it way down one coast and up the other of Africa and then on to South America, through the Caribbean and home to Lunenburg, it will serve as education flagship for the Tidal Passages program. Captain Dan Moreland will move ship, crew and educators from one outstanding outpost to another, providing the team with a movable home, logistical support, and an enormously savvy complement of sailors and navigators. None of this is new to ship and seamen. The Picton Castle's mission has not changed from that of the Phoenicians: she will still be one of Man's golden argosies commissioned to carry the dream forward yet another mile.
--Teachers, moms and dads, sailors and the intellectually young at heart: To learn more about distance learning programs try these links.
The Voyages of the Picton Castle (http://www.picton-castle.com) serves as a great reality base for geography courses, etc. The PC is on a 500-day, 35,000-mile circumnavigation visiting some 50 ports-of-call in 25 countries with a crew of 20 men and 20 women. Visit their "Image Gallery" page -- educators are given ready access and use to over 1,000 images.
Last year's winner of Childnet's prestigious educator's award, Tidal Passages (http://www.tidalpassages.com) brings you face-to-face with exotic learning adventures and has a host of chat sessions coming up soon with various experts.
The Shark Research Institute (http://www.njscuba.com/Sharks/adoption.html) where you'll discover kindred souls and how to go about filing adoption papers for a whale shark. For a $10.00 fee, your children will receive a certificate suitable for framing with the school name and the name of your very own whale shark inscribed. Furthermore, SRI can find a speaker for your classroom.
AsianDiver OnLine Magazine (http://www.asian-diver.com/themagazine/whaleshark2.html) which carries a stirring story about an encounter with a whale shark whose mouth was almost six feet across and whose tail swept an arc of 15 feet.
AltaVista's fantastic image search engine, AV Photo Finder (http://image.altavista.com/cgi-bin/avncgi). I clicked on "whale sharks" and -- lord love a duck! -- AV came back with 1,882 images.
For further information or pictures contact: Angelo Cerchione, Director of Information, The Barque Picton Castle, 371 Lawrence Greene Road, Deep Gap, NC 28618, (telephone: 828-264-7839 or email: angelo@boone.net).
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