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July 29, 2009
Brown Bag at BIOME
This Friday we have the great pleasure to visit BIOME. BIOME actually consists of two islands in the virtual world Second Life, Biome and Biome II. Owned by Northern Michigan University, they are maintained by Dr. Carolyn Lowe of the NMU School of Education. Biome is a significant location in the Second Life SciLands (also known as the Science Archipelago). We are especially lucky that the creator of Biome, Clowey Greenwood, has agreed to offer an introduction to Biome for our group.
Clowey is the founder of the Teaching Science group in Second Life and a highly regarded science educator in both Second Life and real life. This summer, for the first time, Northern Michigan University is teaching an established graduate student course in Second Life. Here is a description of that course.
EDSI 562: Modeling in Science. What do you know about modeling in science? Would you like to hear some details from scientists on how they create and use models? Would you like to learn to use models you have not used before? What are the extents of modeling and how does it work? This online course involves investigations in to the reasons we use models, how these models are created, what types of models are there, what are the benefits and what are the drawbacks. It includes an investigation using an authentic model. It includes virtual field trips and live discussions with expert scientists. At the end you will have a subject and age-specific activity to take back to your classroom. If you are not a classroom teacher a project appropriate for you will be designed.
You can find more information about Clowey and BIOME at the links below.
Biome: a Sim-Biotic Second Life World, A Virtual World of Biodiversity and Ecology:
http://simbioticbiome.wordpress.com/
http://lowelearning.com/simbioticbiome/
Clowey Greenwood's Second Life Wiki: http://cloweygreenwood.pbworks.com/
Flickr: Clowey Greenwood: Biome & MSU: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cloweygreenwood/sets/72157609657447924/
Please join us on Friday, at 9am SLT, noon EDT.
BIOME: http://slurl.com/secondlife/BIOME/127/121/28
Posted by pfa at July 29, 2009 07:22 PM