During the fall of 1947, the first building for the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (NARL) was constructed, which consisted of a quonset hut retrofitted as a laboratory. Scientists arrived in Barrow (Utqiagvik), Alaska, the northernmost village in the United States, not long after. The remainder of NARL was built two miles outside the village…

Each of the papers in this collection offers a much-needed antidote to the forces that disconnect educators from the places in which they teach, learn, and live. Together, they provide an opportunity to reflect on the power of place in education. This issue offers an opportunity--an invitation--to embrace all that the places both in and outside…

Earthquakes "have" been in the news of late--from the disastrous 2010 Haitian temblor that killed more than 300,000 people to the March 2011 earthquake and devastating tsunami in Honshu, Japan, to the unexpected August 2011 earthquake in Mineral, Virginia, felt from Alabama to Maine and as far west as Illinois. As expected, these events…

Biodiversity is the extraordinary variety of life in this planet. In order to be fully appreciated, biodiversity needs to be experienced firsthand, or "experientially." Thus, the standard classroom lecture format is not the ideal situation for teaching biodiversity and evolutionary concepts, in that student interest and understanding are…

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are compounds that were once used as insulators in electrical transmission lines and in the production of polymers. Each PCB differs by the quantity and location of the chlorine atoms. PCB production was halted in 1977 due to their potential toxicity, but the chemicals are still found in the environment due to…

What Australia, Alaska, Qatar, Indiana, and Ohio have in common is the authentic writing More Observations Of Nature (MOON) project. In this unique project, teachers from these disparate geographic locations teamed up to instruct children in grades four through eight via the internet on a nearly universally challenging subject for teachers in the…

During the year the field force of the Bureau of Education in Alaska consisted of 5 superintendents, 1 assistant superintendent, 116 teachers, 9 physicians, and 11 nurses. Sixty-nine schools were maintained with an enrollment of 3,635. School buildings were erected at White Mountain, whither the Eskimos had migrated from Council; at Elim, within a…

Information Technology and Indigenous People provides theoretical and empirical information related to the planning and execution of IT projects aimed at serving indigenous people. It explores many cultural concerns with IT implementation, including language issues and questions of cultural appropriateness, and brings together cutting-edge…

Volume II of the 1888-1889 "Report of the Commissioner of Education" has one part. Part III -- Detailed Statistics of Educational Systems and Institutions, with Comments and Discussions: (1) Statistics of State Common School Systems; (2) Digests of State School Reports; (3) Report of the General Agent of Education for Alaska; (4) City…

After an introduction by the Commissioner of Education, chapters I and II of volume 1 cover reports from the Mosely Educational Commission to the United States. Chapter III addresses proceedings instituted to execute the Rhodes Scholarship Trust. Subsequent chapters cover French education, agriculture teaching in French and Belgian schools,…

Volume 2 begins with discussion of Hopkins Grammar School history, Greek language issues, and Justin S. Morrill's legislative career. Miscellaneous topics cover Indian Territory, backward children in public schools, U.S. engineering education, Christian Brothers schools founder St. Jean Baptiste de La Salle, public library development, Delft's…