Her talk was ACCEPTED!!

[Dmmetler]

DD14’s talk on “Online instruction of Herpetology for gifted students”, about her classes at Athena’s Academy, has been accepted to the 2020 World Congress of Herpetology. This is her first major conference acceptance, and it’s for WORLDS! Thanks to all the parents here who have let their kids take her Herpetology classes the last few years, and who have given permission to let her share your kids’ work, survey responses, and your responses. (And there are still seats available in this fall’s class :)) 

[Kassia]

Wow, what an impressive accomplishment!  Congratulations!  

[purpleowl]

That's amazing - what a wonderful reward for her hard work!

[Guest]

Dunedin NZ, at the University of Otago. We have been planning to go so that she could get some exposure to Southern Hemisphere Herpetology as a really awesome (if a bit early) senior trip. I think she applied out of a feeling of “why not” and to say that she had done so, but really expected a rejection. 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

We have some of the best snakes in the world down here!

It's interesting that the conference is in NZ. I thought NZ didn't have snakes 🤔

I hope you both enjoy your trip! Are you coming to Australia while you're in this pocket of the world?

[Guest]

NZ has some of the most unique lizards (and the last existing reptilian dinosaur) in the world. The life history for many NZ lizards is different than anywhere else, even Australia. I think it’s also that Australia and NZ are considered together in the rotation, and the NZ folks won the site bid this time around. Australia got it the last time it was in that part of the world. The next one in 2024 should be somewhere in Europe. It’s something like a 40 year rotational cycle. 

We need to finalize our schedule.  I am hoping for a week or so somewhere in AUS. DD will need to be in NZ in Jan, but we should be able to leave here about Dec 20. Of course, that is also going to hit Christmas. She really wants to see some of your animals in the wild, and maybe visit the Australia Zoo. 

 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

Australia Zoo 👍  This zoo is great, but it's not just Australian animals.

If you end up in QLD, and you're only interested in our native animals, I'd suggest you consider going to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It's only native animals and it's not just koalas. We used to have yearly passes to it and we'd go and sit with the wallabies and kangaroos for an hour or so. We could pick the quiet times of the day (tourist-wise) and just enjoy hanging out with the animals.

https://koala.net/

[Pen]

Good for dd!!!

[Rush]

Congrats! Well done! 👍😉

[8filltheheart]

Congratulations to your Dd!! Sounds like an awesome experience.

I am sure you recognize this, but with this on her CV, she is very likely to be a very top candidate for some of the crazy competitive full-ride scholarships out there like Robertson at Duke, Park at NCSU, Banneker/Key at UMD, STAMPS at any of the schools that offer it, etc.  I don't know if any of these schools meet her academic needs: https://www.stampsfoundation.org/partners/prospective-scholars/ or https://blog.collegevine.com/50-colleges-with-full-ride-scholarships/  I think your job as guidance counselor researcher just shifted to  different level. Her profile now is most competitive of competitive. 🙂 

 

[Guest]

There are at least three schools I want her to consider more closely now that had been nixed due to price (Chicago, Washington, and Vanderbilt), and she has a lot of Stamps schools on her list already, since a lot of the big state flagship schools are also the big research schools.  It’s starting to look like her Spring semester English (she has a DE class in the fall, so I always do something at home in the Spring, because I don’t like giving her a full credit for a half year in a core subject, even when that half year was a college class) will be “write and revise and rewrite lots and lots of essays”. 

 

DD is away right now, so I have no idea how she reacted to the news. She did, however, tell me that the e-mails were going to come out at X time, and to check her e-mail. 

[Guest]

Working on booking right now-it looks like 6 days in Sydney, 4 in Auckland, and the remainder in Dunedin (and on airplanes). 

[Guest]

Now fully booked, mostly into rental flats/cottages. Just need to sort a few more details-and get the conference schedule so we can register DH for the day DD is speaking. 

[Kareni]

On 7/26/2019 at 8:14 AM, dmmetler said:

DD14’s talk on “Online instruction of Herpetology for gifted students”, about her classes at Athena’s Academy, has been accepted to the 2020 World Congress of Herpetology...

What wonderful news! I hope that she had a great experience.

My daughter spent a semester in Otago while a junior in college; she enjoyed her time there. 

Regards,

Kareni

[Guest]

We're really getting excited at this point, now that so much is set and we're working with specifics. And this semester's herp class is going well, so she is confident in what she is doing.

[mathmarm]

What is the age/grade range on this herpetology class for kids and what are the prerequsites?

[Guest]

This is the one for this fall. The one for Spring is focused more on specifics, but they can be taken in any order https://athenasacademy.com/courses/introduction-to-herpetology-junior-instructor-fall-2019/

The Spring schedule should be out fairly soon, and the course description for Herpetology II will be up then.

Here are the stated prerequisites:

Before taking this course, students should be able to: 

• Read at a solid 5th-grade level or above.
• Write a few sentences independently.

Students should be willing to:

• Actively participate (via the microphone) in the class discussion.
• Encourage class discussion by adding their questions/ideas in the chat window during the webinar.
• Respond with positive and encouraging comments on their classmates’ posts in the classroom forums.

Required books & materials:

• Weekly readings will be online, no textbook required.

In general, most of the materials are on a 5-9th grade reading level, with some higher,  and there will be at least one source on each primary topic accessible to students on an upper elementary level-either a reading passage, a video, or similar content, as well as a few that go more in depth at a higher level (up to and including journal articles). Anything that may be troubling, like feeding videos, is flagged. The age has run a full range-we have had students who are 6-8 years old, and students who are 16 years old (including one who was taking the class because he was scared of snakes and wanted to be less so). The average seems to be about 11-13.

[mathmarm]

Thanks for sharing all the details!

One more question--do you have to be available during the class time, or can you access the course materials and complete the assignments at a different time?

[Guest]

You can watch recordings and do the assignments/materials at a different time. We usually have a few who do that each semester, especially if time zones don't work out well.

[Guest]

We're 11 days out from our departure. DD is taking her last final today (as are many of the other students). She's getting very nervous, and afraid she is going to totally mess it up. Her session is really a prime time slot (my father commented that in his professional career, he has only had a mid-morning slot a few times, and that he has never had a student get that kind of positioning) which makes her even more nervous. It is also a little surrealistic to be packing summer clothes when it's snowing outside. 

[8filltheheart]

Best wishes to her.  What an awesome opportunity!  I hope she can get over her nerves and just embrace it as a high schooler's experience of a lifetime vs. overwhelming.