Virtual Alaska With Mr. Hollinger
Journal Entry for Monday, April 30, 2001
10:00 Monday morning Alaska Daylight Time: I'm at Cordova High School. I met Mr. Chris Dunbar, a teacher here who has been involved in the same project that brought me to Alaska. He's arranged for me to use a computer to do these journal up-dates.
We have been blessed with another beautiful day. Blue sky and sun. Everyone reminds me how unusual this is. Most days here are overcast and often rainy. See a photo below of the morning at the Cordova fishing boat marina.
I returned to our home base at St. Joseph's church after making my initial journal entry. There I was asked to drive the mom of one of the students to her home about 8 to 10 miles out of town. I know I'm overusing the words beautiful and wonderful, but there are few other words to describe the awesome beauty of that drive through the taiga forest. The views of Orca Inlet and the mountains and Islands around it... indescribable.
We packed lunches today and headed out - teachers, parents, students - into the Chugach National Forest which, by the way, isn't just forest. It includes the Copper River Delta and all its associated wetlands. (Before scrolling down to the pictures, can you think of the characteristics of a wetland?) That's where we went today. At a site called Alaganik Slough (Find out what a slough is.)we viewed a variety of birds, including gulls, terns, trumpeter swans and others which remain, at this writing, unidentified. There's a long boardwalk built out over the marsh and ponds that allowed us a close look.
On the drive out and back we passed and got a good look at the Sheridan and Scott Glaciers. A lot of the water that forms the wetland here is meltwater which flows from these receding (sp?) glaciers.
Back in town students met with two artists in residence here in Cordova. One a story teller, the other a blugrass musician. Students are learning to tell stories and play guitars, banjos, and other instruments.
Tonight most of the students went swimming at the local pool. I stayed back at the church and prepared a Power Point presentation as part of my role as technology teacher this week. Tomorrow morning I'll introduce students to the Five Themes of Geography and Power Point. A technology guy from Anchorage is bringing 12 computers (iBooks) to us tomorrow afternoon and we'll have them the rest of the week. Students will be creating presentations around their "Meandering Moose Project" which is modeled after our "GeoBear Project."
The weather is still fine here today. High of 57 degrees and sun. But tomorrow there is both rain AND snow in the forcast. Imagine...the possibility of snow on May 1st!
Photos
Sunrise over the Cordova marina. "Worth getting up early for."
A few of the students I'm working with this week. We're all exploring the Cordova area together. I'm teaching them how to use Power Point and other computer applications to make presentations about what we are learning. We had an outing to the Alaganik Slough today. Can you find out what a slough is?
The Copper River Delta of Alaska is reportedly the most productive wetland in the U.S.A. It supports an incredible abundance of bird, sea, mammal and other life. A wetland has three characteristics 1) abundant water, 2) water-logged soils, 3) plant and animal communities that are uniquely adapted to the wet environment.
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