Florida Wildflower Foundation Seeking Volunteers for Wildflower Surveys

This year the Florida Wildflower Foundation completed spring, summer and fall surveys of naturally occurring wildflowers along the five-county St. Johns to the Sea Loop trail (Putnam, Volusia, Brevard, Flagler and St. Johns counties), which will soon become the state’s first Wildflower Trail.

In 2010, the Foundation plans to survey other wildflower-profuse areas in the Panhandle and in North, Central and South Florida. The surveys will identify showy areas of native wildflowers in order to document species and suggest management practices. This research also will help us promote Florida’s native wildflowers as economic and intrinsic community assets.

First, though, we need the assistance of residents and visitors to find wildflower sites throughout the state. They can help by sending the following information by Dec. 1 to the Foundation at wildflower.research@gmail.com:

1.Approximate locations of any showy roadside or trailside (paved bike or foot path) native wildflowers seen in Florida during spring, summer and/or fall.

Include:

a.The scientific or common name of the plant species. If the name is unknown, describe the flowering plants’ characteristics (i.e., color, height, growth habit, etc.).

b.The road’s name, as well as a nearby intersection or another landmark that will help us locate the site.

c.The geographic region (defined below) and the city and/or county in which the site occurs.

d.The approximate date of the sighting. If the date is unknown, please include the season.

e.A description of the habitat (i.e., wet ditch, sand dune, pine forest, etc.).

f.Digital photos, if possible.

2. The names and locations of public lands (state, national, city and county parks; water management district holdings, etc.) that have great native wildflower displays, along with species names and approximate bloom dates,

Garden or civic clubs that have planted roadside or trailside native wildflowers can help by sending the planting’s location and a species list.

Geographic regions are defined as:

Panhandle: Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Holmes, Jackson, Washington, Bay, Calhoun, Gulf, Gadsden, Liberty, Franklin, Wakulla, Leon, Jefferson.

North Florida: Madison, Hamilton, Columbia, Baker, Nassau, Duval, St. Johns, Flagler, Putnam, Clay, Marion, Alachua, Levy, Bradford, Union, Gilchrist, Dixie, Lafayette, Suwannee, Taylor.

Central Florida: Citrus, Sumter, Lake, Volusia, Seminole, Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hernando, Sumter, Citrus, Manatee, Hardee, Okeechobee, St. Lucie, Indian River, De Soto, Sarasota.

South Florida: Charlotte, Glades, Martin, Lee, Hendry, Palm Beach, Collier, Broward, Dade, Monroe.

Florida Wildflower Foundation
PO Box 941066
Maitland, FL 32794-1066
407-353-6164
www.floridawildflowerfoundation.org

Virtual View on Virtual Schools

There are emails going around, on both sides of the fence, about virtual school program legislation currently under consideration in FL (SB 534 and HB 7067). Some of the emails encourage signing a petition to allow home educators to participate in School District Virtual School Programs (SDVIP) without previous enrollment in public school, and others protest the legislation.

All home educators are urged to become informed about virtual school choices in Florida, whatever your opinion or preference regarding the schools, and to make sure you have all the facts (or as many as you can find) rather than acting on fear based or uninformed arguments on either side.

Support for SDVIP Enrollment Expansion
With respect to the petition, found at http://www.flvirtualfamilies.org/petition/ and this particular phraseology: "In looking at this law, it is a great tool for those parents that would choose to homeschool." …

It's important to remember that SDVIP is great tool for those interested in having a *public school education option that they can administer from home*. Participants need to understand that the laws under which those enrolled in this program would provide that education are different from homeschooling laws.

The petition calls on Florida representatives "to change the portion of House Bill 7067 that states a child must attend public school for one year to qualify for this program. We feel that this discriminates against children that previously home schooled or that would have to come out of private school that would want to use this program. Parents of all children should have the option to use this if they so chose. Treat all children fair"

Grammar issues aside,  the bill doesn't actually discriminate against homeschooled children or anyone else. This is a procedural issue, not a home education issue . Transferring to SDVIP should be handled as any public, private or homeschool program transfer is handled, using existing Florida State Board of Education transfer rules.

Opposition to SDVIP
Long time home and private school lobbyist Brenda Dickinson, of the Home Education Foundation, is concerned about the Senate version of SDVIP legislation, SB 534, for other reasons, principally her contention that SDVIP "will lead to the demise of home education as we know it."

In a recent email, referencing a Christian Broadcasting Network article titled "Online Charter Schools Proving Popular" she contends:

"Parents are going to be more confused about virtual education than they were last year if Charter Virtual Schools are created in Florida. This year some parents who have enrolled their children in the School District Virtual School Programs (SDVIP) are forming their own support groups and asking for membership in the Florida Parent Educators Association. They think they are home educators. However, students enrolled in a SDVIP, using K-12, Inc and Connections Academy are not home educated students; they are public school students. I believe in a short time this confusion will lead to the demise of home education as we know it.

"The type of school listed (in the article) is NOT a virtual school; it is a distant learning program. A box of books and materials are delivered to the child's home and the parent is the primary instructor. With the cost of curriculum and private education in these uncertain and difficult economic times, the charter virtual school described below will appeal to many parents. These programs contain highly structured curriculum with 180 days of lessons sent to the parent with a distant teacher provided who checks on the student periodically. Notice that the teacher only has to contact the student once a month. Since the State requires schools to provide 4 to 5 hours of instruction a day for 180 days per school year, these private programs are requiring parents to provide 4 to 5 hours a day per child for 180 days per school year.  The State will now bear the cost (about $5500 per child) of these children who will be enrolled in a public school run by an at-home private school with the parent as the primary instructor. Though it sounds a lot like home education, it has the structure and standardization of a private school.

"SB 534 is filed for the 2010 Session and will create the same virtual charter school in Florida described in the article below. My question is: How long will home education parents be able to direct their children's education if these schools are established in Florida?  Many parents are afraid to step out on their own to take over the education of their children under the home education law, so this highly structured program will appeal to those parents. Within a few years, there will be almost no one in the elementary grades who develops their own curriculum and tailors it to their own child's interest, pace and learning style. Most parents, new to home education, will be persuaded that this is the only way to teach your child at home."

The virtual school induced death knell has been rung for homeschooling for almost ten years now. (For the record, almost identical complaints were leveled at FLVS at the time, even though now, FLVS is lauded by many of the same homeschoolers as a model virtual program for home educators.)

Home education is,in fact, changing and has been since its inception. But that's different from suffering a "demise."  More people than ever are aware that they can in some great measure influence and direct their children's education, perhaps not as completely as some of us have chosen, but more than many more people ever would have considered doing.

A future now suggests itself where everyone tailors his or her education to best suit individual needs, interests and abilities. This has the potential to bring a far higher quality of family life and education to more people than does circling the wagons to protect "home education as we  know it." Life as people knew it a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years ago no longer exists. While some good things are lost to time and history, many more good things have been gained: civil rights, greater longevity, multiculturalism, fascinating and useful technology, and more access to knowledge than ever before. 

Get the Facts
With any of the virtual school arguments or supplications, important points of clarification should be:

• Sources and evidence for "slippery slope" arguments of doom;Specific studies regarding virtual school program effects on home education;
• Specific instances of school district strong-arming (some emails claim school districts are performing portfolio reviews with the intention of intimidating parents into choosing SDVIP programs);
• Focus on real issues: equitable application of uniform transfer rules, or truth in advertising for SDVIP programs – issues that apply across the board to all families trying to make informed decisions.

Advocating and empowering all families to make informed educational decisions for themselves and their children is, in the long run, the best way to protect homeschooling.

You can read more about HB 7067 at

http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=39535

www.fldoe.org/GR/Bill_Summary/2008/HB7067.pdf

www.fldoe.org/gr/li/Q&A-DistrictVIP.pdf  (Q&A)

And about SB 537 at http://bit.ly/2ZPaKm 

Thoughts and insights are welcome, as is additional information that others may find helpful in weighing their options.

And for the record, any virtual school families seeking support and resources are very welcome to join Learning is for Everyone of Florida. We don’t care how you learn at home, and we’re happy to help you make the most of your time together with your children.

Terri Willingham
http://LIFEofFlorida.blogspot.com

Enjoy a Symphony of Science

Visit http://www.symphonyofscience.com/ for more information and more joyous science!

Florida Students Invited to Participate in US Dept. of Energy's Real World Design Challenge

Chancellor of Public Schools, Dr. Frances Haithcock joined Lt. Gov. Jeff
Kottkamp Aug. 25 to announce that Florida is one of 25 states nationwide
participating in the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Real World Design Challenge (RWDC).
The annual event provides high school students in grades nine through 12 the
opportunity to work on real-world engineering challenges in a team format. The
RWDC presents student teams with a challenge that confronts one of the nation's
leading industries; this year the focus is on aeronautics and energy usage.

Participating students will have a chance to apply the lessons of the classroom
to the technical problems that are being faced in the workplace, and utilize
professional quality computer-aided design software to develop their solutions.
Teachers participating in the challenge are also able to obtain professional
development opportunities as well as software engineering tools valued at nearly
$1 million.

To learn more about the Real World Design Challenge, visit
http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/RWDC/index.html. Districts and schools
interested in participating may contact Sally Sanders with the Florida
Department of Education at sally.sanders@fldoe.org.

They've confirmed that homeschool and private school students can register teams.

"I Am What I Learn" Video Contest

To further encourage student engagement, the U.S. Department of Education is launching the "I Am What I Learn" video contest. On September 8, we will invite students to respond to the president's challenge by creating videos, up to two minutes in length, describing the steps they will take to improve their education and the role education will play in fulfilling their dreams.
 

We invite all students age 13 and older to create and upload their videos to YouTube by October 8. Submissions can be in the form of video blogs, public service announcements (PSAs), music videos, or documentaries. Students are encouraged to have fun and be creative with this project! The general public will then vote on their favorites to determine the top 20 finalists. These 20 videos will be reviewed by a panel of judges including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The panel will choose three winners, each of whom will receive a $1,000 cash prize.

Starting this Friday, you can visit www.ed.gov/iamwhatilearn to find out more.

Read the full text of his speech at http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/
 
Watch webcast: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/aug20forumlive/

President Barack Obama's Education Address: "...Set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them."

 Text of President Barack Obama's planned public schools address:

 

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today. 

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.   

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year. 

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. 

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox. 

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. 

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. 

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. 

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. 

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future. 

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy. 

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country. 

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in. 

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse. 

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right. 

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying. 

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. 

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America. 

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall. 

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same. 

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. 

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things. 

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK.  Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." 

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying. 

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in. 

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals. 

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. 

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?  

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

______________________

 From: http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

Family Admission for Four donated by Delaware North Companies to LIFE Fest!

Delaware North Companies Parks and Resorts , operators of Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, has generously donated a Family Pass for four (valued at $152) for our LIFE Fest 2009 raffle!

Thanks, Delaware North Companies!