Hi Tweets,

To take my mind off its (wachoo!) misery, I thought I'd clean out a few
days' worth unread mail. Not to steal Hans Krauss's thunder, but here's a
fascinating post from UKbirds. Lots of good potential ideas here.

M


>Return-path: <owner-ukbirdnet at dcs.bbk.ac.uk>
>Envelope-to: mprice at mindlink.net
>Delivery-date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 13:22:36 -0800
>From: "bill.urwin" <bill.urwin at argonet.co.uk>
>To: "UKBN" <ukbirdnet at dcs.bbk.ac.uk>
>Subject: UKBN: Promoting Birds in Schools
>Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 19:41:55 -0000
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>Sender: owner-ukbirdnet at dcs.bbk.ac.uk
>Precedence: bulk
>Reply-To: "bill.urwin" <bill.urwin at argonet.co.uk>
>X-UIDL: 880924956.4992
>
>To feed my birding habit, I have a day job as an educational information
>technology consultant for a local education authority. Part of my brief is
>to investigate the effective use of the Internet by schools. The past month
>or so has seen frenzied activity as local education authorities and their
>schools prepare themselves for the arrival of the National Grid for
>Learning. This government initiative promises to link all schools in the UK
>to the Internet at ISDN2 levels within the next four years.
>Part of my job is to ensure that once they are all linked, there is a
>wealth of sound curricular material for them to get involved in. One of the
>ideas I have been kicking round for a while is the idea of setting up web
>cameras at sites with good potential for birding. My initial idea would be
>to have one set up on a really productive bird table so that children could
>log on and identify species, observe behaviour etc at a simple level. It
>may also involve sensors to automatically count visits to a perch,
>temperature, weight of food being eaten etc. Once schools have ISDN2 level
>access, on-line video will be a possibility.
>Next year also sees an initiative called UK NETYEAR which seeks to involve
>firms in joint ventures related to Internet access by school children. This
>first call is for any interested parties who lurk on UKBN or EBN who have
>resources, skills and energy to help make a project such as the one above,
>more than an idea. Having recently followed the thread which bemoaned the
>lack of younger birders and having a sixteen year old son/birder of my own
>who is the only one in his secondary school of c. 1,000 to have an active
>interest in birding, I am keen to do something which might redress the
>balance. I look forward to any helpful replies.
>
>To mollify any potential flamers who do not think that the above should be
>on UKBN, my latest news is that there was a Pallas' Warbler on Portland
>today at Pennsylvania Castle, A spoonbill and c. 160 Avocets at Arne, a
>Dusky Warbler on Hengistbury Head and for the moth watchers among you, a
>Red-headed Chestnut caught at Portland Bill, only the fifth or sixth this
>century!!!. It's on my list :-)
>What a blocker.
>
>bill.urwin at argonet.co.uk
>01460 57830 (home)
>0467 622747 (mobile)
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