Michael Joncas, and Louise Lambertson Visit the National Paideia Center. It can be a daunting task for educators to make a connection between the mandated curriculum and outdoors experiential learning. Elementary schools are chosen through an application process. School sites are chosen based on their full commitment of the administration and teaching faculty, evidence of business, community and parent support, and current use or intent to use an experiential science program. Students, guided by trained teachers, take environmental measurements identified and designed by an international group of scientists and educators.
Students send their data via the Internet and other means to a processing center.
The data are made available to environmental scientists around the world, contributing to efforts to better understand the earth. The students' data are combined with data from other science sources. State of the art digital images, based on these data, are relayed back to the classroom by television, computers, and other communications systems. The visualizations emphasize how each school's observations are an important part of the global environment. This is a program for students who do not speak English as their primary language.