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TEACHER
TRAVELS |
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TEACHER TRAVELS, produced by Blue Ridge
PBS, is an instructional television series that has been released
for national distribution to K-12 schools. The series is funded by
a grant from the National Educational Telecommunications Association
[NETA] and features three award-winning area teachers as they travel
the world recording the sights and sounds of Greece, Egypt, and Malawi
in order to share their experiences with students.
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Episode 1: The Agora -
Ancient Greek Marketplace
Wade Whitehead teaches 5th grade at Crystal
Spring Elementary in Roanoke City and visited
Athens, Greece. While most tourists
concentrate on the Parthenon and other
monuments atop the Acropolis, Wade visited the
Agora, an ancient Greek marketplace at the
foot of the Acropolis, where archaeologists
are uncovering the artifacts of the average
citizens of ancient Greece. |
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Episode 2: Measuring the Great
Pyramid
Ben Bazak teaches Algebra and Calculus at Patrick
Henry High School in Roanoke City. He traveled
with his wife Suzanne and their twin sons to
Cairo, Egypt. There he recreated one of the
greatest accomplishments in the history of
mathematics: the measurement of the Great Pyramid
of Giza. Using only the sun, a rod, and a length
of string, Ben duplicated the feat of the Greek
mathematician Thales of Miletus.
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Episode 3: Malawi -The Warm
Heart of Africa
Jenna Swann is a 5th grade teacher at Prices Fork
Elementary in Montgomery County and visited the
Domasi Government School in Zomba, Malawi. She
traveled with several other teachers as part of a
teacher exchange program between Virginia Tech and
the Malawian government. Jenna beautifully
captures the educational process in a school where
students share limited resources in relatively
primitive conditions. |
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More about the
teachers: All
three teachers are past winners of the
McGlothlin Awards for Teaching Excellence,
an annual $25,000 award available to teachers within
the coverage area of Blue Ridge PBS.
The awards are sponsored by the McGlothlin
Foundation of Bristol, Virginia. A stipulation of
the award is that $10,000 be used for international
travel, to broaden the thinking and experience of
winning teachers and enable them to bring their
experiences to their students and colleagues. Other
past winners of the McGlothlin Awards for Teaching
Excellence have visited Peru, South Korea, Russia,
Scotland, England, Canada, Vietnam, Italy, and other
countries. |
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