Published: January 15, 2011
Mr. DeWolf writes:
Much has happened, is happening, and hopefully will happen at Chippewa Hills High School. Last year I was chosen as one of Cohort II in the NASA Endeavor Fellow program and have actively been pursuing my certification from Teachers College at Columbia University as a STEM master teacher. We also had a team of students pursue research on the effects of solar wind on Earth's geomagnetic field as part of the school's involvement in the E/PO of the THEMIS mission, out of the Space Science Laboratory at UC Berkeley. And we have become involved in the Mars Student Data Exploration Teams (MESDT) project, with students interacting with mission scientists in after school teleconferences.
This year I have earned two distinctions. I was named the Outstanding Earth Science Teacher of 2010 for the state of Michigan by the Michigan Earth Science Teachers Association. I also was recently named as one of 37 teachers for the latest round of teacher liaisons for the Space Foundation. This year we have extended our involvement in Arizona State University's MESDT program to a spin-off: Planetary Investigators (PI). I have a team of students involved in working with data from the mini-RF instrument onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, looking for the best place for a potential lunar base, based on the availability of water ice. They also meet once a month after school and discuss mission science with NASA scientists involved in the project.
Our department is working on curriculum proposals for next year that will expand Earth & Space Science back to a 2 Trimester course, and add a 2nd trimester of astronomy as well. These will provide additional opportunities for us to include NASA resources - and student research - into our science curriculum at Chippewa Hills High School