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S'COOL E-note November/December, 2007

Greetings from the S'COOL Team! Welcome to Issue #21 of the S'COOL E-note.

This month's E-note includes:

  1. S'COOL website "Feature of the Month"
  2. Lesson Plan Feature
  3. Cloud Photo of the Month morphs to Seasonal Contest
  4. A new feature has been added to "Google Earth Comes to S'COOL"
  5. Email address changes
  6. S'COOL will be at NSTA in Birmingham
  1. S'COOL website "Feature of the Month"

    Many of our participating schools have a S'COOL feature on their website. We would like to know if you are one of them. You can find the list of schools we know about on the S'COOL on School Websites page. If your school has a S'COOL feature on their website, please send us the url and we will get you added to the list.

  2. Lesson Plan Feature

    Have you needed a simple strategy for introducing temperature measurement to younger students? Take a look at this month's featured lesson "Introducing Temperature Measurement" contributed by Dianne Cluett, an elementary teacher from New Zealand.

  3. Cloud Photo of the Month morphs to Seasonal Contest

    For the past couple of years, we have asked for your best cloud photos so that we could feature one photo each month. A big thank you to all of the photographers who have shared their photos with us - we have received some beautiful pictures! It is now time for a change to this feature.

    The new rules:

    1. Submit an interesting photo WITH the corresponding satellite image.
      This means that you will want to take pictures during your S'COOL observation, if the sky is interesting, and then save them until you receive your matching email with the link to the MODIS image.
    2. Include a caption.
      It is your job to explain to the judges why your photo, and the accompanying satellite image, are interesting.
    3. Submit no more than 3 entries per season (i.e., one per month).
      Only the first 3 entries received from each S'COOL participant will be considered in the seasonal judging.
    4. Entry deadlines are:
      Winter (NH) / Summer (SH) March 31 (photos from December solstice to March equinox)
      Spring (NH) / Fall (SH) June 30 (photos from March equinox to June solstice)
      Summer (NH) / Winter (SH) September 30 (photos from June solstice to September equinox)
      Fall (NH) / Spring (SH) December 31 (photos from September equinox to December solstice)

    It will take us a little time to rework our website for this new submission process, so judging will start with the northern hemisphere winter / southern hemisphere summer season. We will make another announcement when the website is ready to accept submissions, but please start thinking about submissions for this new process beginning on the December solstice (Dec. 22, 2007).

  4. A new feature has been added to "Google Earth Comes to S'COOL"

    If you have not taken time to visit the Google Earth Comes to S'COOL page, please take a few minutes to view your school's location! There are now 3 things to view in this file:

    1. A pin marking your school's location
    2. A box showing the 1 by 1 degree latitude / longitude box that your school is in. Satellite data for that entire box is used in the old, "regular" matching method.
    3. A circle representing the satellite field of view around your school used in the new "footprint" matching method.
    Note: We are having some trouble getting all three of these to work on some systems. We are working on it, though. If the coordinates we have for you are not correct please email us your correct latitude and longitude values.

  5. Email address changes

    Have you updated your email address book? Please add scool@lists.nasa.gov to your address book. The old address scool@larc.nasa.gov will continue to work for a while. Please don't forget to send us an email when you change email addresses.

  6. S'COOL will be at NSTA in Birmingham

    The S'COOL team will be represented at the NSTA 2007 regional meeting in Birmingham. The S'COOL presentation will be December 8 from 9:30 to 10:30. The share-a-thon will be December 7 from 11 am to noon. Both will be in the Jefferson Convention Complex, North Meeting Room H.

    If you are doing a presentation for other conferences, and would like to include S'COOL materials, just drop us a note. We will also include your presentation on our visits page if you send us the details. Thank you to those of you who have represented us!