Chapter 12: Education (1 of 2) -- EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

     In addition, there are a number of resources on the Internet aimed
specifically at elementary and secondary students and teachers.  You can
use these to set up science experiments with classes in another country,
learn how to use computers in the classroom or keep up with the latest
advances in teaching everything from physics to physical education.
     Among these resources:

     K12NET:  Begun on the Fidonet hobbyist network, K12Net is now also
carried on many  Usenet  systems and provides a host of interesting and
valuable services.  These include international chat for students,
foreign-language discussions (for example, there are French and German-
only conference where American students can practice those languages with
students from Quebec and German).  There are also conferences aimed at
teachers of specific subjects, from physical education to physics.
     The K12 network still has limited distribution, so ask your system
administrator if your system carries it.

     SPACEMET:  If your system doesn't carry K12, but has access to
 telnet , you can reach it through SpaceMet Forum, a bulletin-board
system aimed at teachers and students that is run by the physics and
astronomy department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  The
address is spacemet.phast.umass.edu.  When you connect, hit escape once.
     Like K12, SpaceMet Forum began as a Fidonet system, but has since
grown much larger.  Mort and Helen Sternheim, professors at the
university, started SpaceMet as a one-line bulletin-board system several
years ago to help bolster middle-school science education in nearby towns.
     Today, there is a whole series of satellite SpaceMet BBSs in western
Massachusetts and SpaceMet itself is now linked to Fidonet and Internet.
     In addition to the K12 conferences, SpaceMet carries numerous
educationally oriented conferences.  It also has a large file library of
interest to educators and students, but be aware that getting files to
your site could be difficult and maybe even impossible.  Unlike most
other Internet sites, Spacemet does not use an ftp interface. The
Sternheims say ZMODEM sometimes works over the network, but don't count
on it.

     KIDSPHERE:  Kidsphere is a  mailing list  for elementary and
secondary teachers, who use it to arrange joint projects and discuss
educational telecommunications.  You will find news of new software,
lists of sites from which you can get computer-graphics pictures from
various NASA satellites and probes and other news of interest to
modem-using teachers.
     To subscribe, send a request by e-mail to kidsphere-
request@vms.cis.pitt.edu or joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu and you will start
receiving messages within a couple of days.
     To contribute to the discussion, send messages to
kidsphere@vms.cis.pitt.edu.
     KIDS is a spin-off of KIDSPHERE just for students who want to
contact students.  To subscribe, send a request to
joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu, as above.  To contribute, send messages to
kids@vms.cist.pitt.edu.

     HEALTH-ED:  A  mailing list  for health educators.  Send a request
to health-ed-request@stjhmc.fidonet.org

     Hemingway:  PAPA is a mailing list about Hemingway and his work. To
get on the list, send a request to dgross@polyslo.calpoly.edu.

     NASA SPACELINK:  This system, run by NASA in Huntsville, Ala.,
provides all sorts of reports and data about NASA, its history and its
various missions, past and present.  Telnet spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov or
128.158.13.250.
     When you connect, you'll be given an overview of the system and
asked to register. The system maintains a large file library of GIF-
format space graphics, but note that you can't download these through
telnet. If you want to, you have to dial the system directly, at (205)
895-0028.  Many can be obtained through ftp from ames.arc.nasa.gov,
however.

     NEWTON:  This is another BBS-like system, run by the Argonne
National Laboratory.  It offers conferences for teachers and students,
including one called "Ask a Scientist."

     Telnet: newton.dep.anl.gov.
     Log in as: cocotext

You'll be asked to provide your name and address.  When you get the main
menu, hit 4 for the various conferences.  The "Ask a Scientist" category
lets you ask questions of scientists in fields from biology to earth
science.  Other categories let you discuss teaching, sports and computer
networks.

      FTP :  To get a list of ftp sites that carry astronomical images in
the  GIF  graphics format, use ftp to connect to nic.funet.fi. Switch to
the /pub/astro/general directory and get the file astroftp.txt. Among the
sites listed is ames.arc.nasa.gov, which carries images taken by the
Voyager and Galileo probes, among other pictures.