SEWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL'S HOME PAGE

Quest teacher Jerry S. Dixon wins Christa McAuliffe Fellowship

Seward Elementary and eastern Kenai Peninsula Quest teacher Jerry S. Dixon received a $44,000 grant to forge an electronic link between the Alaska SeaLife Center and schools in Seward and around the world with the Alaska SeaNet Project. He is the last Alaskan teacher to be selected as a McAuliffe Fellow who designed his own project.

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What began with the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship as the Alaska SeaNet Project to connect Alaska Schools to the Alaska SeaLife Center has continued with the North Pacific Project to bring students to the Center. As of November 2000, over 2400 students have benefited.

Abstract, Fourth Report 1998

The grand opening of the Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) on May 2, 1998 heralded the coming of age of the worlds newest aquarium and the completion of the SeaNet Project. The McAuliffe SeaNet Project presented a video of our project as one of the events. This was the culmination of a year's project to connect Alaska Schools to the the center via the Internet. The SeaNet Project was part of getting this connection in place before the grand opening.

The SeaNet Project also took 12 students to Texas to visit the Texas State Aquarium and find out how this aquarium serviced public schools. With this information and using a computer lab purchased with McAuliffe funds monies, the students worked on a virtual tour that has remained the third most popular at the ASLC official homepage.

Other highlights include the production of a curriculum page with ASLC web master, Jim Pfeiffenberger, that will allow a teacher or student to access information and download lesson plans related to SeaLife Center activities and referenced to Kenai Peninsula School Districts standards.

The SeaNet Program facilitated visits by six schools and 550 students to ASLC for programs as varied as Pinniped Picnic and the Nocturne Program this spring.

The www pages created will be continued into the next century on the center's homepage. Students and parents have been enthusiastic about the SeaNet program as the parent that remarked, "This project changed my child's life, now she wants to be a marine biologist."

If this has been the hardest I have worked in 14 years of public education it is also the most exciting year I have every had. Because of my work as a McAuliffe Fellow I have been invited to apply for a grant through a private foundation that, if successful, would help bring 5000 Kenai Peninsula students to the ASLC for the Nocturne Program. I am indeed indebted to the Christa McAuliffe Committee for the honor of being a McAuliffe Fellow. I can say that, "Through this fellowship, Christa McAuliffe is teaching in Alaska every day."

Jerry S. Dixon, Teacher of the Gifted

Addendum: As a research biologist I know that any good abstract should be no longer than half a page. What follows are individuals and/or organizations that the SeaNet Project abstract is being sent to. Students also made presentations to the Kenai Peninsula school board on May 4 and the Kenai Peninsula Assembly on May 5, 1998. Updated December 21, 2001. .