Columbia, S.C. — Recent delegates to a meeting of the Smithsonian Affiliates in Washington, D.C. got the benefit of learning about cutting-edge distance education from one of the Palmetto State’s top science educators.
Tom Falvey, the South Carolina State Museum’s director of education, spoke to the Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference June 11.
Falvey was invited to brief the group on the museum’s partnership with South Carolina Educational Television, specifically its digital outreach to all the schools in the state.
He narrated a video that gave an overview of several videos the museum and ETV have made for schools over the past several years, and gave a short history of the museum’s relationship with ETV. In addition, he discussed the agencies’ distance learning program “South Carolina State Museum Resources for Educators.”
“One of the nicest things I got to talk about was the additional abilities and new modes of distance education we’ll be able to offer through our Windows to New Worlds expansion and infrastructure,” said Falvey.
Windows to New Worlds is the major new initiative which will add to the
museum a state-of the-art observatory, a 55-foot digital dome planetarium and theater (the largest in the state),and an immersive 4-D theater.
Of the many huge contributions to distance education in the state this unique-in-the-nation addition will offer, one of the most direct is the ability of every school class in the state to request time on the observatory’s giant 12 3/8-inch lens Alvan Clark telescope and observe its targets live over the Internet. Many more will be available to the students of the state, both on-site and remotely, Falvey said.
“It was a very beneficial trip, and I hope that it will help to further spread the museum’s reputation nationally as a cutting edge resource for distance education.”
