Near and Far Sciences for Illinois is a Scientific Literacy Professional Leadership project for teachers in the Earth and Space Sciences.  NFSI is funded through the Scientific Literacy program of the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), as a state leadership activity.  NFSI was designed to support the teaching and learning of Earth and Space Sciences to meet the goals of the Illinois Learning Standards.   NFSI is a collaborative effort involving many associations and institutions.

• Focuses on adult learning in Astronomy, Meteorology,  and Geology in Illinois, the process of inquiry and technological design and Standards-led, learning-level appropriate K-12 classroom applications with free materials and equipment;
• Provides K-12 job-embedded professional development opportunity aligned to the recently approved Illinois Professional Teaching Standards;
• Has an initial focus on Science Goals 11, 12, and 13, with Standards applications and assessment connections to mathematics, social sciences and language arts; and
• Provides options for up to eight graduate credit hours at a cost of $50/hour or associated continuing professional development units for certificate renewal plans.

Teachers may participate in one or more of these programs, concurrently.

The syllabus for each course is linked here:

NFSI SKYWatch North

NFSI Stars & Scopes

NFSI I: Introduction to Meteorology, Astronomy, and Geology.

NFSI II: Groundwater

NFSI III: SKYWatch: "Sharing the Skies" or "Picture the Universe"

NFSI IV: Build Your Own Technology (BYOT)

Directions to Yerkes Observatory.  Directions to Aurora University's George Williams Campus. 

NFSI Reunion May 17, 18, 19, 2002: Plans, Directions, Agenda; NFSI Reunion 2002 Report

   Meade Star Catalog

   Meade Constellation Catalog

   LX90 Setup, LX90 Short Setup

   LX200 Setup, LX200 Short Setup

   Polar Alignment

   CCD Directions SBIG ST7

   LX90 Inventory

   Green Team Inventory

NFSI Participant Pages.

Using Thousand Oaks Solar Filters on the SKYWatch Telescopes (Kevin McCarron) http://www.math.uic.edu/~mccarron/NFSI/solar/

Telescope Construction (Sherry Deets and Karen Coffin). http://www.bths201.stclair.k12.il.us/west/telescope.htm

Alt/Az Device Construction (Sherry Deets). http://www.bths201.stclair.k12.il.us/west/azmuth.htm

Viv's HOU Explorations Pages  http://hou.lbl.gov/~vhoette/Explorations/ 

Mike Beeftink's Telescope Pictures  http://www.niles-hs.k12.il.us/north/science/micbee/   

BYOT Telescope Team www.urs86.k12.il.us

Spectroscope (BYOT) (Lynne Zielinski and Vince Pinelli)

How to Use the NFSI SKYWatch Solar Projector!

SKYWatch Weather Stations (links to schools that have their weather on the web)

Hanna Elementary (Jan Gufstafson) http://weatheractive.com/java1/agn/

Virginia High School (Stephanie Hobrock) http://12.25.247.174/

Jefferson Elementary (Pam Steele) http://weatheractive.com/java1/aak/

American Meteorological Society http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS/  ...and Datastreme http://ametsoc.org/dstreme/

National Weather Service http://www.nws.noaa.gov/

The Weather Channel http://www.weather.com/

Illinois State Geological Survey http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/

American Astronomical Society http://www.aas.org/

Astronomical Society of the Pacific http://www.aspsky.org/

NASA http://www.nasa.gov/

University of Chicago, Yerkes Observatory http://astro.uchicago.edu/yerkes/

Cernan Space Center, http://www.triton.cc.il.us/cernan/cernan_home.html

Lakeview Museum and Planetarium, http://www.lakeview-museum.org/

Staerkel Planetarium, Parkland College, http://www.rightguide.com/space/poi/staerkel.htm

Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum. http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/

Great Lakes Planetarium Association http://www.pa.msu.edu/abrams/GLPA/Index.html 

Sangamon Astronomical Society http://www.sas-sky.org/

NFSI Collaborators and Experts (More pages will be added here. This is only a partial list of our many friends.)

Praxis Software (for Weather Stations) http://www.praxsoft.com/

Radio JOVE (Jim Thieman) http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Sue Ann Heatherly) http://www.gb.nrao.edu

Elizabeth Roettger's Color Astronomy and other projects. http://www.nthelp.com/eer/default.htm

Passport to Knowledge http://passporttoknowledge.com/

Hands-On Universe http://handsonuniverse.org/

Journey into Spectroscopy, StarDate, Mary Kay Hemenway. http://stardate.org/marykay/spectroscopy/sp.html

Project Starshine - Student Tracked Atmospheric Research Satellite.
http://www.azinet.com/starshine/

The CERES S'COOL Project - provides ground truth data for the TRIMM weather satellite.
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL

Heavens Above - site that provides the overpass times and paths for the ISS, HST and other satellites visible to the naked eye.
http://www.heavens-above.com

PSC Meteorology Program Cloud Boutique http://vortex.plymouth.edu/clouds.html

Tornadoes Quiz http://whyfiles.org/013tornado/tornado_quiz.html

Weather World: Flooding http://www.speedsite.com/~temps/

Gwen Pollock, Science
 Illinois State Board of Education
100 North First Street, C-215
Springfield, IL  62777
Phone:  217/557-7323
Fax:  217/782-7937
gpollock@isbe.net

Vivian Hoette
Univ. of Chicago Yerkes Observatory 
373 West Geneva St.
Williams Bay, WI  53191
Phone:  262/245-5832
Fax:  262/245-5555
vhoette@yerkes.uchicago.edu

02/06/2004 01:58 PM