Indiana School for the Deaf, SOAR-HIGH PROGRAM

During the 1999-2000 school year, one of ISD's high school Earth Science classes participated in an experimental distance learning course called SOAR-High. SOAR-High was created by Mary Ellsworth, Earth System Science Teacher at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf. She also developed the website for SOAR-High. Each year since 1999, ISD students have continued to participate in SOAR-High.

The schools that currently

participate in the SOAR-High Earth System Science class are:

the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, in Washington, DC

University High School, in Irvine, California
the North Carolina School for the Deaf
the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf
and the Indiana School for the Deaf

In SOAR-High, students explore distance learning and collaborations with students in other states, utilizing a variety of technology. Students access the class' units of study via the Internet at the SOAR-High website. The SOAR-High website has received two national awards, which recognize outstanding distance learning programs. The SOAR-High website contains a wealth of tools and resources, including School Calendars, Schedules, a Class Discussion Area, Unit Questions, Web Resources, Historical Timelines, a Tool Room, an area for Contacts and E-mail, Student Guidelines, Collaboration, Teacher notes, Photos, Student Portfolios, and an area of information about Deaf Scientists. Students arrive in class and immediately begin working, usually by checking a web page of daily messages from their teachers containing daily/weekly directions.

Curriculum units include:

Understanding the Earth as a System
the GLOBE program
Earth's Energy Budget
the Earth's Atmosphere
the satellites that make up NASA's A-Train
The Electromagnetic Spectrum
Remote Sensing
the Earth's Hydrosphere
the Earth's Lithosphere
sandbox experiments with Dr. Michele Cooke from the University of Massachusetts

ISD students participating in this class learn how to create and publish their own web pages with Dreamweaver software for the purposes of making electronic portfolios of their work, for sharing and evaluating their work with peers, and for documenting what they have learned in class. Their portfolios are kept in a protected website that requires a password to be able to view their work, as well as the work of their peers.

Students develop independent learning skills which are vital for becoming life-long learners, as well as for learning to work in a team. They learn to use the Internet, as well as a variety of other sources, to find information and data. Most importantly, they learn science by doing science, not just reading about it. Although reading is an important aspect of the course, the main focus is geared towards teaching students to use the science process skills which the "heart" of ISD's science curriculum: observing,classifying, measuring, communicating, inferring, predicting, interpreting data, making operational definitions, hypothesizing, experimenting, making models, and valuing.

Each of the schools involved in this distance learning course has paid close attention to satisfying the requirements of the schools' curriculum goals, as well as state and national science proficiencies.

Participation in SOAR-High has given ISD students incredible opportunities in traveling to Croatia for the GLOBE Learning Expedition and to Utah for examining faults in the field with Dr. Michele Cooke.