News

'Why does the sky turn green ...?'

By SPIROS GALLOS / Niles Daily Star
Thursday, December 2, 2004 10:32 AM EST

NILES - Students at Niles High School took part in a pair of video conferences with meteorologists from WNDU News Center 16 and students at an elementary school in St. Joseph Wednesday.

WNDU News Center 16 meteorologist Mike Hoffman answers questions from students Wednesday at Niles High School, while Janine Lim from the Berrien County Intermediate School District looks on, during a pair of video conferences at the school. Hoffman and fellow WNDU meteorologist Cindi Clawson took part in the conferences as part of the Berrien County ISD's "Author Specialist Knowledge" reading comprehension program.

Meteorologists Cindi Clawson and Mike Hoffman joined students from three English Skills classes in the Niles High School library while conversing with the students in St. Joseph via live video and audio feed.

Clawson and Hoffman took questions from students at both schools about tornadoes, ranging from "What's the largest tornado ever recorded?" to "Why does the sky turn green when there is a tornado?"

The video conferences were part of a reading comprehension program coordinated through the Berrien County Intermediate School District known as the "Author Specialist Knowledge" (ASK) program.

The students read the novel "Night of the Twisters" by Ivy Ruckman as part of the program unit. The students kept a journal everyday, writing about their reactions to the material they read.

Students also prepared questions for the Clawson and Hoffman based on their journals and class research and discussion.

Students in Niles English teacher Jenny Nate's class watched parts of the movie "Twister" to get a visual idea of what a tornado looks like and is capable of doing.

Although the movie was not a required part of the unit, Nate said she felt the movie would enhance the students' experience with a visual representation of what they were reading about.

"I feel that the more things we can do during the study of the unit to help the students connect to the text, the more they learn," Nate said.

Clawson and Hoffman both said they had spoken to classes in the past, but Wednesday's video conferences were firsts for the two meteorologists.

"It was neat that I could talk to two different groups in two different places at the same time," Clawson said. "It made it feel like it was a small group, even though I was talking to two groups."

"I thought it was really neat, it allowed a lot more students to get involved," Hoffman said. "It allowed multiple classrooms in different parts of the county to take part in the discussion."

Niles freshmen Kaylynn Stephenson, 14, and Courtney Teske, 15, who got to ask Clawson a question they prepared for the video conference, thought the experience was cool.

"It was cool that the meteorologist was right here and we got to ask her questions," Teske said.

"We got to see the other school and they asked questions and we could hear them right away," Stephenson said.

Nate felt her students learned more through the ASK program because of the amount of involvement the students had with the material they were reading.

"I think this program is fantastic for both teachers and students. It is fun to take a novel and really get to explore the field using discussion, reading, writing, technology, meeting specialists, and learning more about how the topic relates to our lives and the world around us," Nate said.

"Usually the kids read the book and put it on the shelf and they forget about it," Nate said. "This way they can connect with an expert and the information sticks with them."

Berrien County ISD Instructional Technology Consultant Janine Lim, who coordinated the video conferences Wednesday, said the county has been participating in video conference events such as the ASK program for five years.

In the past, fourth and fifth graders in Berrien County have taken part in "Mystery Quest" events, which featured video conferences between four or five schools and students from each class had to guess what country the other classes were giving presentations about, Lim said.

More recently, high school students took part in a video conference with a doctor while he was performing open-heart surgery. The doctor and nurses assisting him listened to and answered questions from high school students throughout Berrien County.

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