Re: SIGN UP
03/23/2001 07:00:00 Sam Carman
Dear Clark,

I received your email regarding the ICE working group and its site on
EdGateway, as did Susan Schultz. I am responding for both of us. Let me
give you a little background on ICE and bring you up to date.

The ICE Working Group was originally called together as a brainstorming
effort to determine the best way to reach Indiana teachers with
conservation
information. During that first meeting on April 18, 1983, it became
apparent that all in attendance really wanted to see conservation education
infused into K-12 school curriculum. As a result, a smaller sub-group was
formed which could meet regularly to guide the direction of the entire
group and accomplish several interim goals.

For 15 years, ICE served as a statewide forum for public and private
organizations interested in conservation education to meet, discuss their
efforts and work together in a spirit of cooperation and sharing. The ICE
working group's philosophy was simple: "Don't worry about who gets the
credit; let's just get the job done." ICE accomplished this by taking many
small, manageable tasks and seeing them to completion.

Its first task was to improve communications between teachers and
conservation professionals. This was done by identifying a key contact
teacher in over 80% of Indiana schools who would pass along conservation
information to other teachers. A list of key conservation contacts for
each
county was also compiled and made available to teachers. Both of these
lists were very difficult to keep up to date, and were seen as temporary
measures until a more reliable network could be developed. The beginning
of
such a network came in 1985 with the introduction of Project Learning Tree.


ICE gave its support to the Division of Forestry to have Project Learning
Tree introduced in Indiana. Project Learning Tree is a nationally
recognized supplemental curriculum for conservation education, now in all
50
states and several foreign countries. ICE was also a strong supporter of
Project WILD, which was introduced to Indiana in 1986, and Project WET
which
was introduced in 1997.

Another first in 1986 was DNR's Resident Conservation Education Camp for
teachers. ICE was instrumental in laying the groundwork for this venture
and continued to play a very active role in the camp, which was an annual
event for 12 years. ICE also reached educators in other ways. Thanks to an
ICE initiative, a block of several exhibit spaces are rented annually at
the
conference of the Hoosier Association of Science Teachers held in
Indianapolis. Conservation education workshops are also frequently
conducted for teachers at these meetings. ICE working group participants
assist in many other environmental education workshops statewide, including
"Nature's Classroom" sponsored by the Arrowhead Country R.C. & D. and the
2
day Camp Gallahue workshop sponsored by the Hoosier Heartland R.C. & D.
ICE
has served in an advisory capacity to the Indiana Division of Forestry's
administration of the U.S. Forest Service's Natural Resource Conservation
Education Program (NRCEP). With additional funding through NRCEP, ICE
developed a state environmental education implementation plan in 1996.

By 1998, it was getting increasingly difficult to get people together to
meet on a regular basis. The ICE group had done a great job of initiating
many programs, and all involved were very busy managing and expanding these
efforts. Since everyone had access to the Internet, it was decided that
the
ICE group would discontinue meeting. Instead, we would "meet" via
EdGateway
on the Internet. Unfortunately, this idea never really caught on and ICE
went into a period of dormancy. (ICE as a regularly meeting group was
dormant, but the participants were all still actively involved with their
programs.)

In January of 2001, the program coordinators of Projects Learning Tree,
WILD, WET, Go FishIN, and Hoosier Riverwatch all took occupancy of a newly
renovated building at Ft. Harrison State Park. This building, now known as
the Natural Resources Education Center, serves not only as the headquarters
for all of DNR's education programs, but also a training and resource
facility for Indiana educators. With this new development, we decided it
was time to bring folks together again. So in December of 2000, a
standing-room-only meeting was held of people interested in environmental
education. Another meeting of this group was held in conjunction with the
annual conference of the Hoosier Association of Science Teachers, Inc.
(HASTI). We are in the process of developing a new Internet linkage. When
this is completed, it should be accessable through EdGateway as well as the
Natural Resources Education Center's Internet site. There will also likely
be periodic meetings of this group as well, though none are currently
scheduled. Notices of any meetings will be posted on the Internet, and you
are certainly welcome to attend.

That's probably far more information than you wanted, but I thought it
important that you know the background of ICE and the fact that it
currently
is inactive on EdGateway. To monitor our progress, feel free to contact me
by phone (232-4119) or email.

Sam Carman, Education Director
Indiana DNR-Division of Forestry
402 W. Washington, Rm. W 296
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: (317) 232-4119
FAX: (317) 233-3863
Email: scarman@dnr.state.in.us



----------
> From: Cl;ark Quinlan
> To: scarman@indy.tds.net
> Subject: Re: SIGN UP id::77382
> Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 3:38 PM
>
> Written By: "Cl;ark Quinlan"
> To: "Indiana Conservation Education Working Group (I.C.E)"
<4330@mail.edgateway.net>
>
> Dear Susan,
>
> I am a college student at IUPUI
> and am interested in becoming an
> active participant on this site.
>
> I am a novice in regards to computer
> operations and am somewhat ignorant
> as to proper cyber-etiquette, so I
> am asking that your office forward
> me information on how to inter-act
> with other group members and to
> receive updated information and
> scheduled events bulletins.
>
> I would appreciate any communication
> that could assist me in this matter.
>
> Thank you very much for your consideration.
>
> Sincerely,
> Clark Quinlan
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To reply privately to Cl;ark Quinlan, create a new message
> and address it to jkhrat_@msn.com.
>
> To share your reply with the Indiana Conservation Education Working Group
(I.C.E) group, reply to this message.
>
> To send a message to the Indiana Conservation Education Working Group
(I.C.E) group on a new topic,
> create a new message addressed to 4330@mail.edgateway.net .
> This is the EdGateway email address for Indiana Conservation Education
Working Group (I.C.E).
>
> To remove yourself from this group, reply to this message with the word
unsubscribe
> as the subject.
>
>
>