[ARDF] Foxhunting and ARRL, let's show we're serious

[Homingin at aol.com]

Dale Hunt wrote:
>The best method, clearly, is to get youth involved, regardless of
>the band or mode used. ...
>Jamboree On The Air is in early October - this may be a good time 

Thanks, I certainly agree.

Last week I had an excellent phone conversation and some e-mails with Mark 
Spencer WA8SME, who heads up ARRL's Education and Technology Program (ETP), 
formerly the "Big Project."  There are 224 schools now involved in the program in 
one way or another.  Each one is different because of differences in the 
interest and capabilities of the teachers as well as the level and type of support 
from the local communities.

Mark puts on four Teacher's Institutes (TIs) each year, with about a dozen 
teachers in attendance at each.  He covers many facets of ham radio, explaining 
how they can help teachers put across some important educational concepts that 
are in today's standardized educational tests.  In recent TIs, he has devoted 
about an hour of his 4-day presentation to RDF topics.  He says that if that 
(or any other ham radio topic) strikes the fancy of a particular teacher, and 
there are local resources, the teacher is likely to up on it.  Otherwise, it 
won't happen.

(Note the important message here:  RDF and other specialty ham radio 
activities are not now and will not be a main focus of ARRL's ETP.  However, they can 
and should be important adjuncts to it in every school where there is an 
interested teacher and local foxhunter support.)

Mark says he is expanding the RDF portion of the TI because teachers have 
asked for it.  He and I are working to refine the RDF presentation and to make it 
even more relevant to educational benchmarks.  But it will be up to local 
hams (that's all of you) to give local ETP schools the RDF experience.  Remember, 
many of these teachers aren't hams and aren't very technical.

You don't need to wait for Scout JOTA in October.  There might be an ETP 
school near you that would welcome some foxhunting for students this spring.  Or 
maybe there's a local school that isn't in the ETP but has a science teacher 
looking for a novel way to teach some RF and wireless concepts.

I look forward to reading about your school foxhunting successes on this list.

73,
Joe Moell K0OV
ARRL ARDF Coordinator

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