My Name is Marcia Zableckis. I teach in Barstow, California. In case you have not heard of Barstow, this is in the Mojave Desert. Barstow is located 140 miles from Los Angeles and about the same from Las Vegas, Nevada. We have hot weather, but it is not humid.

My husband and I have three grown children, two sons and one daughter, and four grandchildren. My two oldest grandchildren seem to love science just like me. I am fortunate that most of them live close to me. My oldest son is the only one who does not live in Barstow, but he lives in South Pasadena, Ca., so that isn't far. My daughter and son in law are both teachers.

We have been fortunate to live in Japan for three years and Italy for seven. Our youngest son was born in Japan. Our family enjoys traveling

Aside from my family, my greatest love is teaching. I teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade general science at Kennedy Middle School. I don't even mind teaching hormones (middle school), in fact I enjoy that age. I have been the science department head for Kennedy for about three years. Before coming to this position I was fortunate to be the director/teacher for an outdoor desert science center, attached to our district, called The Desert Research Station. This was closed three years before I took this position and was fortunate to receive the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship to reopen the center and to again present onsite research on the desert ecosystem to students form 3rd through 12th grades.

I am spending four weeks at Princeton University attending the Woodrow Wilson Institute. This has been a worthwhile program. I have learned how to do a web page, increased my knowledge global changes, and had the opportunity to work in the university labs on a project. My group is working on UV Effects on Phytoplankton. We are a very diverse group. One of the members is from Oahu, Hawaii, another is from Los Angeles, the third is from Mobile Alabama, the fourth is from Puerto Rico, and then I am the Mojave Desert constituent.

For the fourth of July a group of thirteen teachers went to New York on the train. (See photo below)When we got there we went to the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. After that we went to Time's Square and got tickets to see Cats. I have attended plays in the Los Angeles, but being able to see one on Broadway has been exciting. Our global change group is going on a filed trip tomorrow to New York. this time we are going to visit the Museum of Natural History.

Several of the teachers at this conference are designing an Online course that will follow the guidelines of our course here. We will be giving our students a opportunity to learn what we have learned during our four weeks at Princeton. Please be watching for the advertisements for this course. This will be an Environmental Education class with excerpts from the lectures and labs we experienced.

This is my friend Willie Richardson, from Los Angeles, and I on the train to New York.

Rutgers Experiment	Classroom Activities	Materials	Websites
Standards, Inquiry Assessment	Glossary	Mahalo (Acknowledgments)	Ask an Expert

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The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation CN 5281, Princeton NJ 08543-5281 - Tel:(609)452-7007 - Fax:(609)452-0066 Technical contact: lpt@woodrow.org