December updates

As the semester winds down and we get ready for Christmas break, I wanted to send some updates from the 2011 project and an advance notice of the 2012 adventure.

• Building on their success with the presentation of the coal project to the West Virginia Science Teachers' Association, Kellie and Danielle have submitted a proposal to present at the state professional development schools conference. If their proposal is accepted, they will share our course and trip (as well as this blog) with educators from around the state.
• Josh & Dan have been working hard to complete the video journal from the coal trip. They had so much video footage to use that it was very difficult for them to select segments that represents all we did on the trip and keep the total length to about 30 minutes. These two videographers have done great work that we can all be proud to share as a product of our study. They hope to have the videos ready for distribution soon.
• To help with planning for the 2012 project, we will soon be sending a survey to the 2011 coal project participants. The goal of the survey is to provide feedback on what worked well with the coal project and where we need to make changes. We sincerely want to give you the best experience we can possibly provide to transform your classrooms. Feedback from you is the best way we can continue to serve you better. The survey link will be announced soon on this blog.
• Plans for the 2012 project continue to take shape. The topic will be forest products and rail transport in West Virginia. These two industries are so closely tied that it would be counterproductive to attempt to separate them for our study. As with the coal project, we will study the history and science of these industries as well as the art, music, economics, literature, mathematics and culture. Right now it looks like the course will take place on Thursday evenings in March and April (4-6:30 pm). The trip is planned for July 15-20. Please keep in mind that all plans are tentative at this point but we wanted to give the 2011 coal participants an early "heads-up" regarding 2012 plans. Applications will be distributed by Karen after you return from Christmas break.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a blessed New Year. I look forward to working with you soon for the 2012 Forest and Rail Transport project.

Blair Mountain Resources

I had an email from my friend, Julian Martin, this week with information and links to resources from the group wishing to preserve Blair Mountain as a historical site.

Please keep in mind that the authors of the site do not, nor do they perport to, offer multiple perspectives of the Blair Mountain issue. This has been the case with most resources that we have utilized in our project, whether pro-coal, anti-coal, or whatever stand the material takes. However, these are concerned citizens with a true desire to preserve an area with importance to the Labor movement and the state's mining history. I would think that you would benefit from reviewing this website in the context of our course and culminating field experience.

A resource that may be of particular interest is the section containing lesson plans focusing on the middle school level.

There is also an interactive map illustrating events from the march up Blair Mountain in 1921.

The Journey Up Coal River website also may provide information of interest to you.

Presentation to WVSTA

Kellie Wood and Danielle Bray will be presenting the Cabell
County Coal Project at the West Virginia Science Teachers’ Association
conference at Flatwoods. Their session
will be presented on Friday, November 4, from 8 – 9 am in the Braxton Room of
the Sutton Day’s Hotel.
Please plan to come to the session on Friday morning if you
will be attending WVSTA this year.
Danielle and Kellie have put together a presentation that will allow
science educators from around the state to understand the project and to access
your unit plans to do coal based lessons in their schools.

Presentation to Mr. Buck Harless

On September 29, Danielle Bray and Kellie Wood represented our group in a presentation of the Cabell County Coal Project to Mr. Buck Harless. Kellie and Danielle drove to the headquarters of International Industries with Dennis and I and met Buck and Dr. Stan Maynard of the June Harless Center at Gilbert, WV.
Our two ambassadors had prepared an excellent PowerPoint presentation for Mr. Harless then gave a compelling narrative of the project. Mr. Harless was very impressed and would love to see the success of the project shared with other school districts as well as coal organizations around the state.
Please give Danielle and Kellie thumbs up for being such positive advocates of the collaboration among Cabell County Schools, Marshall University College of Science, College of Education and the June Harless Center.

Fall Follow-Up

As Pat and I have indicated in prior email contact, our WV Coal Project fall follow-up is scheduled for Wednesday, September 14 at the Cabell County Central Office from 4 - 6 pm. At that time, we will distribute CD copies of all the unit plans that have been submitted. If you do not see your unit plans posted to the project blog, please notify me so we can add your contributions to the body of knowledge that we have created.

We are very interested in how you will be implementing your coal units in your classroom. You will be asked to briefly (1-2 minutes) describe the major features of your unit plans. Pat plans to review procedures for posting to your blogs and cleaning up your blog entries from the summer trip. He will also go over ways to upload your photos to the shared Flickr site that he created.

Dennis has purchased some additional LabQuest probes for you to enhance the infusion of probeware into your classrooms.

Please be thinking of potential topics for the 2012 project and ways we can improve on the experiential learning initiatives that we have been doing to maximize the impact that our efforts have on the classrooms of Cabell County. As fun and enlightening as these projects have been, we must not lose sight that the goal is to bring richer experiences to the students.

Thurmond & Matewan

In keeping with our study of coal in West Virginia, the Huntington High GigaPan group and I took an outing to Thurmond and Matewan on August 13. Following discussions on the summer trip, we wanted to shoot some high resolution images of the two towns:

Thurmond - http://gigapan.org/gigapans/84262/ (Steve)
Matewan - http://gigapan.org/gigapans/85303/ (Josh)
Matewan - http://gigapan.org/gigapans/84291/ (Pat)
Matewan - http://gigapan.org/gigapans/84246/ (Steve)

Wingfield Pines

I made another visit to a great area that was a former mine site. Wingfield Pines is in the southwestern corner of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. This area was the former site of both underground and surface mines. I was pleased at the beauty and biodiversity of the area. The trails were well utilized by locals for walking, jogging and dog exercise. There are treatment pond where the drainage from the mine areas are being treated. Ponds on the property are magnets for waterfowl and a diverse wildlife community.
If you are every travelling up I-79 toward Bridgeville, PA you owe it to yourself to take a side trip by the Wingfield Pines area to see what can be done with abandoned mine land by a people with vision.

Forks of Cheat Winery

While attending the state technology conference in Morgantown, we had some time before the sessions on Monday. My wife, younger daughter and I decided to visit the Forks of Cheat Winery nearby. This vineyard is built on a former surface mine! The thin mountainous soil of this area is not unlike the volcanic soils of the wine regions in much of Italy.

The vineyard has been at this location since 1981 and grows over 95% of the grapes and other fruits used in the making of their wines at this location. They have several types of grapes, apples, pears, blueberries, blackberries and peaches. Their wines have won many awards and are another great example of a repurposed abandoned surface mine.

The winery owner, Jerry Deal, was very pleasant, giving us a nice personal tour of the vineyeard and facility as well as giving us seeds for some of the many plants in the rock gardens.

Rock Springs Deep Mine

On Friday morning, we left the Best Western Logan Inn early to drive to Rock Springs deep mine near East Lynn, WV. Rock Springs is part of Alpha Natural Resources. We were given a safety course then we were taken about three miles underground to observe a continuous mining process in operation. It was quite impressive to see the coal removed, loaded into transfer cars and dumped onto a belt that delivers the coal to a nearby prep plant. No one in our group had ever spent much time underground so the trip was very informative. We were all impressed with the speed with which the mining machine can fill a 15 ton cart. The roof bolting operation was also a sight to behold. Two holes are drilled, a two part epoxy glue and six foot long roof bolts are inserted within two minutes. The roof bolting machine is manufactured by J. H. Fletcher Mining Equipment of Huntington, WV. The miners report that these are the best machines in the industry.
We concluded our trip with a stop at the prep plant for Rock Springs. Their plant is much like the one we visited earlier at Mountain Laurel but was about twice as large.
The drive back to Huntington on Friday evening was bittersweet. While everyone was happy to be back at their homes and with family, we were sad to see the trip come to an end. Everyone learned about the science, technology, history, economics and culture of coal. In addition, we made many friends not just among our group but with our hosts at each location we visited. Everyone was anxious to infuse their knowledge and experiences with coal into their classrooms.

Singing Bear

Here is the infamous singing bear from our closing dinner at the Logan Country Club in Chapmanville, WV.

Coal Mac and Mountain Laurel Mines

On Thursday morning we left the Best Western Logan Inn in Chapmanville and drove behind the Walmart at Fountain Place near Logan. We saw the work being done to make the abandoned mines at the area safe and secure. A helpful construction worker informed us that the area had been an underground shaft mine. He also told us that mines under Walmart could potentially collapse so Walmart is paying for 2500 trucks of concrete to be pumped into the empty mine, reducing the risk of subsidence.
From there, we went to Coal Mac surface mine facility near Holden, WV. Coal Mac is a subsidiary of Arch Coal. Their huge surface mine was quite impressive. Even more impressive are the areas of their property that have been reclaimed for five or more years. The ecosystem was diverse and becoming well developed. We saw evidence of deer, bear, song birds, insects and other wildlife. We learned that Coal Mac is experimenting with switchgrass and other planting for former surface mine areas. Our guide for the drive around the mine used a comparison that really resonated with most of us. “Immediately following a surgery the wound is unpleasant to see. However, given time and proper treatment, the surgery can return to normal with minimal scarring.” That seemed to be an excellent description of surface mining. While the surface mining is taking place, the area is quite unattractive, however, if properly reclaimed, the area can return to woodland or be repurposed for human use.
Coal Mac provided a nice lunch of sub sandwiches that we took to the First Christian Church in Logan to enjoy while we discussed our visit.
In the afternoon, we drove over Blair Mountain to Mountain Laurel deep mine near Sharples, WV. After a brief safety course, we toured the prep plant where the coal is separated from the rock and is cleaned and prepared for used in making steel. The prep plant was much cleaner than we expected. Mr. Freeman’s statement that the prep plant is really just one big machine with a variety of components seemed like a good description of the overall operation.
We returned to the motel that afternoon to dress for our dinner at the Logan Country Club. Miners and their families were invited to join our group to have informal discussions over dinner about the work and life of coal miners. Clay and Nicole Spradlin were at our table and were very pleasant in sharing information about life in Logan County mines. It was especially interesting since Nicole is a real estate agent and has her finger on the pulse of the economy of the region through home sales. Everyone in our group enjoyed the conversations with the mine families at their tables.
Karen and Annette were recognized by the group for all of their hard work in making the trip possible through handling the logistics of food and lodging. Dennis was honored for his ability to come up with the overall vision for the project and to leverage AMSP funding along with local sources and donations from coal companies. Then came the roast of Pat and Steve by Mr. Strait and others. Pat can certainly use the water from the fountain of youth that was his gift. I received a bottle of Nair as well as a singing bear should I have a desire to wrestle something.

Quality Trip with Quality People

You know there is a lot of work and money that goes into making a trip like this happen, however the success of a trip is due, in large part, to the work ethic and personalities of the participants. We have done a lot of workshops and taken teachers on lots of trips, however I am so impressed with the group we have on this trip. I am encouraged to see the teachers work with this new technology and hear them talk about how they plan to implement their new appreciation for West Virginia and coal into their classrooms. We have science teachers talking about how interested they are in the history of coal and the social or economic impact it has played or will play on the state of West Virginia. In turn, we have math and social studies teachers tromping through streams taking environmental data to determine the streams water quality and then discuss the ramifications of, not only stream life, but the life of the surrounding area. They are truly developing cross-curriculum ideas. Instead of hearing about teachers talking about how tired they were or what they planned to do once the trip was over, we heard stories about how teachers in all the vans (4) were discussing how interesting the last visited site was or how they planned to implement what they were learning into their classrooms this fall. Parents in Cabell County should be proud to have these teachers in their schools. Take a look at the teachers blogs on the right to get an idea of what they have been learning. Two more days to go.................

Beckley, Welch & Matewan

Today was a long but interesting day.

We started with a visit to the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine. Our guide, Marvin, was excellent and interjected a lot of personal anecdotes and humor. We took time to visit the mining museum and the model coal town.

A short drive took us to Terex SHC where highwall mining equipment is manufactured. This was a very impressive operation. This equipment allows a very small but highly skilled mining crew to extract a large amount of coal very quickly without having to send miners underground. Their operation is a credit to our state and is the only major manufacturer of highwall equipment.

Leaving the Beckley area, we drove to Welch, WV to see the courthouse where Sid Hatfield was assassinated.

Here is a snapshot of the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch, WV where former Matewan Chief of Police, Sid Hatfield died in 1921. He was only 20 years old.



An article in the New York Times discusses the assassination.

From there, we went to Matewan, WV to visit the museum then to walk around the town with Dr. Little to learn about the fateful events of May 19, 1920 when the Matewan Massacre occurred. Dinner a local pizza place in Matewan then a drive-by at the Williamson railyards and the Williamson Coal House before headed for our home for the next couple of days, the Logan Best Western.

Everyone is tired but it was an interesting and informative day.

Joe Knob & Nuttallburg

While the weather may have made much of the day seem like a bust, it really worked out well that we saw some interesting things and had some time to work.

We met Jerry "Boozie" Scarles of the Department of Environmental Protection this morning at 9 am to visit mining operations at and near Joe Knob at Anjean, WV in Greenbrier County. Despite the buckets of rain that assaulted us, we were able to see active surface mining and recovery of former mine spoil from gob piles at Bucklily. We were impressed with the monitoring of mining and reclamation by the DEP at the site. Mr. Scarles was an excellent guide and gave us full access to the operations at the site.

After leaving Joe Knob, we made a quick stop at the Meadow River Community Park then on to Nuttallburg after stopping at a picnic shelter for a nice lunch from Karen & Annette’s magic cooler!

Much of Nutalburg was under construction when we were there. Parking, restrooms and improved access is being construction. However, all of this work means that we were unable to reach some of the ruins in the town. The groups were able to do a few water quality assessments and found the water to be of much better quality that anyone expected.

From Nuttallburg, we traveled to the New River Gorge visitor’s center where we visited the observation platform to view the bridge then many of us watched an educational video on the New River Gorge area. We left the visitor’s center and drove to Fayette Station for some bridge photos and great views.

A short trip to the Hampton Inn in Beckley had us back in time for a quick shower before dinner at Bob Evans’ next door. The time this evening is most welcome to allow for time to catch up on blogs and to rest in anticipation of a long day on Wednesday.

Davis & Thomas areas

Sunday - July 17, 2011

The visit at the windmills in Parsons was interesting. I think that most people were surprised at the speed of the tip of the windmill blade after doing calculations based on the size of the windmill and the rotational speed. The stop in Thomas to learn about the history and geology of the area from Dr. Little was a great way to begin the trip.
We finished up the evening with a dinner at Canaan Lodge, a short meeting on using the LabQuest then some time to update blogs.

Monday - July 18, 2011

We left Canaan Lodge and headed to the Yellow Creek area on CVI property near Davis, WV. The day started with Pat having everyone set up and calibrate LabQuest probes. Groups selected locations in Yellow Creek and the Blackwater River to assess for dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity, total dissolved solids and temperature.
After leaving Yellow Creek, a nice lunch at Blackwater Falls got us ready for the afternoon's work.
A short drive to Thomas, WV had us at the beehive coke ovens at Coketon. Only a few dozen of the original hundreds of coke ovens remain. Tests of the North Fork of the Blackwater River there showed pH around 4 and a general low stream quality. A stop at Douglas Falls provided a nice photo opportunity.
The drive from Thomas to Lewisburg was a long one down Rt. 219 but the conversation in the vans was a pleasant way to pass the time. We arrived at the historic General Lewis Inn around 6:30 for a very nice dinner. It was after 9 pm by the time we got to the Holiday Inn Express in Lewisburg. We are all tired but looking forward to visits to Joe Knob and Nutallburg on Tuesday.

Getting ready to leave

As time nears for our departure I am getting a few last minute items together. Since the forecast for the heat is for unusually hot weather, I am bringing mostly short pants and lightweight Aloha type shirts.
Our first stop this afternoon will be at the windmills near Parsons, WV. You will want to download the spreadsheet to calculate windmill speed from Dropbox. You can do the calculations on your Samsung Tab spreadsheet.

Last Minute Preparations

The itinerary has been updated with some minor adjustments in times. You can download the itinerary HERE or from our shared Dropbox folder.
Please check the suggested packing list on the itinerary document to make sure that you have everything you need for the trip. On the first few days of the trip there will be very limited options for shopping in case you forgot an item.
Also, please do not forget to download the water quality lab and associated data sheet. Pat has been working hard to get this lab ready for you and he plans to have us go through the protocol at several locations.
Electronics should be fully charged prior to our departure.
Don't forget that we will depart promptly at 1 pm on Sunday afternoon so please come early so you can load and your gear and get ready for an outstanding educational experience. We hope that this project will be a transforming experience for you.

Ten days to go!

The time is nearing for our big trip across much of the state to study how we can use coal to enhance our teaching.
Pat, Dennis, Karen, Annette and I have been meeting to plan for a trip that will be an unforgettable week that will become a transforming experience for your classroom.
Several items have been placed in the Dropbox folder for the coal class:
First, a lab that we will use at Yellow Creek, Coketon, Joe Knob and Nuttallburg to measure water quality is available. This is Lab 4 from your LabQuest Inquiry with Environmental Science manual. A separate single page document is available for the data sheet. Since Dropbox will only be available when a 3G or WiFi signal is present, you will want to download these documents to your Samsung Tab.
Karen has also placed a final itinerary in our Dropbox folder. This document is much the same as the one you were given in April at our first class meetings. However, some of the locations and times for stops on the trip have been tweaked. Please note that this document lists the deliverables that you will provide (lesson plans, blog posts, implementation in a classroom, etc) and also provides a list of items that you may wish to bring. Lodging locations and contact telephone numbers are in this document as well.
To cover the major items:
Sunday – Depart at 1 pm – visit Parsons windmills and mine locations in Thomas
Monday – Yellow Creek, Coketon – we have scheduled time to collect data and conduct labs here
Tuesday – Joe Knob, Nuttallburg – compare two abandoned mine areas, conduct labs
Wednesday – Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine, Terex Manufacturing, Welch courthouse, Matewan – this is our busiest and longest day
Thursday - CoalMac surface mine, Mountain Laurel Deep Mine – compare modern surface and deep mines
Friday - Rock Springs Mine – potential early completion, unload vans at BOE in afternoon
As you can tell, each day will be busy but we want you to get the absolute most from each and every opportunity. We will do quick picnic lunches many days since there are few places to eat along the way and a roadside lunch is a quick way to get to our next stop for the trip. Lack of bathroom facilities is always an issue on these trips. We will try to alert you when we will be away from a bathroom for some time.
The weather is always unpredictable so be prepared for anything.
There has been some discussion as to whether you need to bring your LabQuests. The answer is YES. We want you to use the probeware to conduct the labs and to gain confidence and experience in using the devices. Please have the LabQuests charged and ready since we will be putting them to immediate use on Monday morning. Also you will want to bring a charger for your cell phone. Coverage is minimal at best.
On another topic, please don’t neglect to develop your coal based lesson plans. The previous blog post gives directions for these lesson plans. These deliverable are an important part of demonstrating to NSF and other contributors to this project that we are putting the skills to work in our classrooms.
Pat and I will be working out of town from July 11-15 but we will be watching the blog and checking our emails. If you need us or have any questions, please shoot an email or post a comment to the blog. We will try to respond as quickly as possible.

Coal Lesson Plans

As promised, I have placed a lesson plan template in our shared Dropbox folder for your use.

This template allows for interdisciplinary lessons that integrate multiple subject areas. Pat and I have made an effort to conduct your coursework such that there are no boundaries among science, mathematics, social studies, economics and other areas. We even threw in a little music and art here and there!

Our lesson plan template isn't etched in stone. If you have another plan that you like, please feel free to use it rather than our model. However, no matter which model you use, you should include CSOs from three subject areas and correlation to Common Core. Lesson plans should be detailed enough so that they can be shared with others in the course as well as across the county.

Once you have developed your lesson plans, they will be collected and put on a CD for distribution.

Logger Pro Workshop

I have included a survey HERE that each of you need to take. It is not only for you to have input into the date for the Logger Pro Workshop, but a chance for you to give us your Gmail account. PLUS it is another chance for us to use a FREE Google product (Google Forms) and interact on a blog (future activities for you and your kids prehaps). Anyway, check out the SURVEY, fill it out, and click the submit button. Thanks.

Checking Out LabQuests

Teachers are already checking out LabQuests to use in their classrooms. Remember, we have 13 LabQuests plus the six sensors (DO, Turbidity, Conductivity, pH, Temperature, and GPS) for EACH unit. I have put a link to the left of this blog with a spreadsheet that will tell you where the LabQuests are and when they will be back. There is also a "check-out" policy I would like for you to read before checking out the LabQuest units. If you have any questions, you can email me at wpmckee@gmail.com.

May 5

We will not need to bring LabQuests and probes to class this week (May 5). You will need your Samsung Galaxy Tab with you.

On May 12, please bring the Tab, the LabQuest and charger. We will have an update for you that will allow you to install nearly 500 labs to your LabQuest making paperless labs possible. At the follow-up session to be scheduled, Pat will show you how to create your own labs and upload them to the LabQuest device.

Rex Dillinger - MMS Teacher of the Year Nominee

Our group's own Rex Dillinger was selected as Milton Middle School's nominee for Cabell County Teacher of the Year. Mr. Dillinger is an outstanding mathematics teacher with many years of service at Milton and Cox Landing Middle Schools.
You can see the nominees from each school and Cabell County's Teacher of the Year, Mary McClure of Cabell Midland High School's math department in the Wednesday, May 4 edition of the Herald-Dispatch.
Give Rex a big thumbs up at class this week.

First "Coal Class"

Tonight we began our first, in a series of five, classes leading up to our weeklong trek through the coal fields of West Virginia later this summer. Steve Beckelhimer got us started with a discussion about the origins of West Virginia coal as well as the various types of coal. Students in the class received their Samsung Galaxy Tablets that will be used throughout our trip to photograph, video, take notes, and blog about their experiences each day. To cap off the evening, we had with us Dr. Paul Rakes, who currently is an associate professor of history at West Virginia Institute of Technology. However he came to be a professor only after spending a considerable amount of time underground. Dr. Rakes is a third generation coal miner who was born in a West Virginia coal camp and worked in the coal industry for twenty years before getting his teaching degree. As an instructor, he specializes in Appalachian history while concentrating on coal politics, technology and disasters in West Virginia. A PowerPoint slideshow that accompanied his lecture can be accessed by clicking HERE. Participants are encouraged to spend some time working with their Galaxy Tabs this week and bring them back next Thursday for our second "Coal Class".