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S'COOL E-note for October, 2006

Greetings and welcome to the 8th monthly email of news from S'COOL.

THIS MONTH'S NOTES INCLUDE:

1) Daylight Saving Time ends
2) Satellite correspondence email notification system
3) Does S'COOL fit your state education standards?
4) S'COOL Visits - Regional NSTAs

(1) Daylight Saving Time ends
When requesting overpass schedules and reporting observations, don't forget that Daylight Saving Time ends in most of the US on Oct. 29.

(2) Satellite correspondence email notification system
We've now been sending auto-emails for about a month. From our point of view, this is a great addition to the project. We hope that you think so as well, and welcome your feedback (both positive and negative) about this new feature. If you are having trouble with any aspect of S'COOL, please let us know. We can't fix problems if we don't know about them, so if you run into an issue, send us a note.
One thing we have noticed is a number of comments that imply the students are feeling bad if their observations don't exactly match the satellite data. Please remember - and remind your students - that the reason we are doing the S'COOL project is precisely BECAUSE the ground report will NOT always match the satellite retrieval. That is where the interesting learning can take place (for us and, we hope, for your students). I'm going to begin a page of FAQs relating to the comments we have seen so far. It will be a work in progress, so check back periodically to see what common issues are being identified.

(3) Does S'COOL fit your state education standards?
Thanks to those of you who have gotten us started on the project to identify state standards that relate to S'COOL. So far we have PA, VA, and DOD schools, with WV on the way. Visit the draft page and send us a brief note about standards for your state. Your assistance with this project will be most appreciated!

(4) S'COOL Visits - Regional NSTA?
Take another look at our Visits page. Thanks to teacher ambassadors, S'COOL will have a presence at the upcoming NSTA regionals as well as a couple of state conferences. If you attend any of these conferences, please say hello to the S'COOL ambassador. If you are attending your state conference and would like to present S'COOL, we will be happy to support you with materials.

As always, keep looking at the sky!

Dr. Lin Chambers - Director
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The CERES S'COOL Project - Students' Cloud Observations On-Line
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL/ scool@lists.nasa.gov
Tel.: (757) 864-4371 Fax.: (757) 864-7996
The CERES S'COOL Project, MS 420, NASA Langley Research Center,
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
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