As the first cohort in the MATL program, I have had an incredible opportunity to interact with a wonderful group of people. Throughout this program, I was challenged and allowed to grow as a teacher. Many great ideas have been shared and utilized in the classroom. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to have the experiences provided by this program. This website is a culmination of my experiences in the Master of Arts in Teacher Leadership with an Emphasis in Earth and Space Science at George Williams College

For two summers, our cohort was able to observe the night sky at Yerkes Observatory. Technology was an important aspect to these courses. Whether we were looking at stars through the telescopes on the back lawn of the observatory, through the 40 inch refractor telescopeor the 24 inch diameter reflector telescope, amazing sites were viewed and documented. The pictures on this page show pictures taken with the cameras on the back lawn of Yerkes as well as the 24 inch. The picture of the moon (shown below) was taken with a camera equipped with a special program that allows more light to be taken in. The picture of Mizar and Alacor was taken in the dome with the 24 inch.

A moon crater

This photo was taken with the same camera on the back lawn of Yerkes Observatory. In this picture, with this type of camera, the moon appears as bright as the sun.

This class allowed us to use technology on the lake as well as with experiements in the classroom. The classroom technology allowed us to graph temperatures with a probe. The experiment integrated the use of technology with a hands-on experiment.

Weather Underground Visiting this website daily, allowed me to see the cold and/or warm fronts approaching different areas of the country. Not only did I view this map, I took the information and transferred it to my own paper copy were I analyzed the fronts. By viewing this map, I was able to make predictions on the weather in the coming days. The Weather Channel The above box shows the current weather in Williams Bay, Wisconsin.

The technology I utilized the most during this course was my digital camera. While on field trips, I compiled pictures to document the places and things that I saw. Using a digital camera was not new to me, especially since it was my own personal camera. I also utilized power point to present my pictures to my peers. One way in which I could share my experience would be providing my power point to my fellow teachers and students as a virtual field trip.

This course was filled with many types of technology and almost everyone of them was new to me. Although I have looked through a telescope before, none were as powerful as the Dobsonian Telescopes. I learned how to adjust and align the telescope as well as find the objects in the night sky. One night, I was able to locate Jupiter and through the telescope see the rings. This was a first for me. Although looking through the larger telescopes are Yerkes were very impressive, the most enjoyable, for me, was being able to be out on the back lawn of the observatory and observing the night sky. I would like to have more time using the telescopes and cameras outside verese using the telescopes indoors.

Although this course allowed for some use of technology, I feel that more could have been implemented. The temperature tools, although intersting in class, were the only technology piece I used. I would have liked more time using them in real situations, like testing the water at the beach.

Technology is a huge component to predicting weather. The advances in past years have increased the ability to warn of oncoming dangerous weather. While on our field trip to the weather station in Wisconsin, we were shown the different pieces to prepare weather reports as well as how to warn people of approaching storms. Although we were not allowed to assist in these activities at the weather station, we did utilize the internet to form predictions based on maps and radars. I would have liked to have more of a variation on the maps. It was interesting to see and learn how to use the map from the internet to predict the weather for the upcoming days. The most interesting part was revisiting our previous predictions to see how close we were at predicting the weather.