Fall 2001

Raising Montana
UM, State Research Childrearing Costs

Buyer Beware:
Watch for Hidden Interest

Bacteria Busters
Material Patented by UM Reduces Bacteria in Food

Carbon Castaway
UM Researcher Creates Unique Sensors to Study the World's Water

First Ladies of Literacy
Professors Earn NEA Grant for Summer Reading Camps

Healing Waters
UM Launches New Study of Whitefish Lake

Briefs
Kicking the Cigarette Habit, Journalism Students Learn from the Pros, and Educators Discover Lewis & Clark

__________ BRIEFS __________

Kicking the Habit

The UM College of Technology clearinghouse on tobacco-use prevention and cessation has an award-winning educational traveling trunk available for check-out.

The Tobacco Uck! Trunk contains posters and flip charts, as well as items such as a real lung — from a pig — that shows how smoking affects human lungs and a doll that demonstrates the effects of tobacco use on an unborn fetus. The trunk has been used in the past at conferences, school programs, community fairs, youth-group meetings and other health-related events. It is the size of a large suitcase, fits in the back seat of most cars and can be checked out free of charge except for shipping and handling fees.

“Resource materials offered by the clearinghouse have been selected carefully from catalogs, Web sites and other sources that are typically approved by the Office of Public Instruction,” says Bernadette Bannister, who directs the Resource Center for Technical Assistance and Training at UM Continuing Education.

“Educational kits for public schools to use in grades seven through 12 for tobacco prevention and cessation classes and materials that are culturally pertinent for use by American Indian tribes and urban centers also are being assembled at the center,” Bannister says.

The Tobacco Uck! Trunk was the brainstorm of Karrie Grimm, a registered nurse who worked as an information specialist at the COT Mansfield Library until May of this year. In August the trunk won a blue ribbon in the health-care-issues category at the Park County Fair in Livingston.

Dan Vollin, information specialist at the library, makes check-out arrangements for the trunk and gives instructions for setting up the exhibit. He can be reached at (406) 243-7868.

Visit www.cas.umt.edu/mtuprc for more information about the Tobacco Uck! Trunk and UM’s Resource Center for Technical Assistance and Training.

Airing Experiences
UM journalism students have the chance to learn from the pros, thanks to a grant awarded to the Department of Radio/Television.

Professionals from the broadcast industry are sharing their knowledge with students through a partnership between the radio/TV department and KHQ-TV, Spokane’s NBC affiliate. The first visit in September brought news anchor and reporter Dana Haynes and chief photographer Jeff Hite to campus to lecture, critique student work and conduct workshops.

Assistant Professor Denise Dowling, who wrote the grant-winning proposal, says, “Our students can’t wait for the opportunity to have one-on-one time with these broadcast professionals. We know students will benefit from what these pros have learned during their years in the business. We also expect KHQ will have the opportunity to identify talented students who may someday come to work for them.”

Other professionals in the fields of promotion, programming and news production will visit campus throughout the academic year.

The grant comes from the Knight Foundation in conjunction with the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Lewis & Clark Lessons
Educators from across the country studied Lewis and Clark’s epic journey using satellites, computers and field trips during a unique summer institute at UM.
The Lewis and Clark Summer Institute, partially funded by the National Geographic Society, allowed K-12 teachers to delve into the cultural and ecological changes that have occurred in the past 200 years along the Corps of Discovery route. Participants studied the Lewis and Clark Trail using advanced technologies such as geographic information systems and global positioning systems — new tools that can be incorporated into everyday classrooms.

The institute was organized by the National Lewis and Clark Education Center, which was formed at UM last year to help teachers augment their Lewis and Clark instruction through the use of satellite imagery, multimedia tools and more.

“We now have a lot of satellite imagery of different parts of the Lewis and Clark Trail,” says Alex Philp, the center director. “When teachers come to one of our programs, they walk away having experienced something they have never seen before. This is something that they can take back with them and get their kids excited about.”

This was the education center’s second Lewis and Clark institute. With the 2003-2006 bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition fast approaching, center personnel hope to host two or three institutes each summer.

“Our core mission is to help teachers understand technologies, help them work with data sets derived from satellites and help them understand change over time,” Philp says.

The Lewis and Clark Education Center is run by UM’s Earth Observing System Education Project, a NASA-funded organization that disseminates Earth-science imagery and curricula to the global educational community and especially information about NASA’s Earth Observing System, a flotilla of satellites now being launched.

For more information about the institute or the EOS Education Project, call Lauren Mackay at 243-6703.