Photo Courtesy ARE Taylor Ferguson, ARE STEM Educator, with just a few of the thousands of Priority Mail packages headed to Alaska classrooms.
capacity has increased, and the online platform has become more familiar. We have also been able to use what would have been travel funds, and re- allocate them to materials and ship- ping. “In some villages, teachers have still been able to gather students to- gether, while in many others, stu- dents have participated from their own homes via Internet. For example, there was a teacher in Shageluk who was able to gather all her kids togeth- er who were able to build oil derricks
from the materials that we sent.” Instead of the shutdown being an obstacle, it became a huge opportuni- ty. Thanks to new technology, espe- cially Zoom online conferencing, ARE added innovations including online student courses, online camps and online courses for teachers. And the result was reaching and connecting with more students. In 2019, ARE reached 3,914 stu - dents in direct classroom visits, com- pared to 2,489 students through most of 2020 — but through expanded
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other lessons that don’t need any ma - terials, and have created new games that can be easily played through the online platform. This is an example of one of the ways we are teaching kids, by playing games and making things as fun as we still can. “Obviously, we could not travel, however the silver lining is that we have been able to reach more stu- dents, in rural Alaska as their Internet
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The Alaska Miner
Winter 2021
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