The Solar Powered Car Project increases awareness of solar car technology for students around the state and promotes students learning from students as well as instructors. This project uses distance learning technologies such as satellite, fiberoptic, ISDN, and Internet web resources to expose schools to the work of The Solar Car Team from Columbus North High School. This interdisciplinary program has value for many areas of learning including mathematics, geography, physics, and business as it pertains to the solar car team. Emphasis is placed on higher order thinking skills and problem solving strategies. Partnerships between the member schools have facilitated classroom to classroom connections where students share joint experiences in literature, science, and thematic studies.
Teachers meet via distance learning for planning the collaborative skills.
Cultural Collaboration A Tale of Two States is a distance learning unit that links fifth and sixth grade students from an independent school in Indiana with sixth graders from a traditional school in Hawaii. The yearlong thematic unit uses experts from both Hawaii and Indiana to relate the geological, ecological and cultural histories of these two unique territories through two-way interactive video. Both classes use research skills, field experience, data collection, and field trips to explore the uniqueness of their state history. The intended outcome of this unit is to give both classes a better understanding of who they are by looking at the past. Although both groups of children are demographically diverse, through shared responsibility, they can realize how much they have in common.