To add a little drama, a critical part always breaks during the trip, forcing students to machine a replacement using a lathe. More than 10,000 7th and 8th graders will be making the voyage next school year. Students upload data to the Internet. They later access the data in their schools and analyze the data, just like scientists doing field research. The project is fully integrated with state and federal learning standards, Cummings said.
Emphasis is on problem-solving, critical thinking and teamwork.
Other New Yorkers appeared as speakers in several seminars. One was Benjamin Ferrara, a school attorney in Syracuse and a past chairman of the NSBA Council of School Attorneys. Ferrara, of the Ferrara, Fiorenza firm, spoke on vendor agreements between districts and beverage product suppliers, which he described as the fastest growing area of commercialism in the schools. There were 150 such agreements in 1999, compared with 46 in 1998. Ferrara recommends in their negotiations with vendors that districts obtain 30 percent to 50 percent of the net sales of all beverages sold at their schools.