The Scores So Far

As far as I know I've posted everything that has been sent to me. Please go to http://www.gatesscience.info/teamescience/pringmap.htm and scroll through the list of schools at the bottom. Everyone with a potato icon before it has results. Let me know if there are any mistakes.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Final Results

All of the results you sent should be posted by February 20th. I've been away. My daughter successfully defended her dissertation at the University of Chicago, and she's now Doctor Lindgren! Now I've got a lot of catching up to do!

Clear Skies,

Charlie

The Results are Coming in!

If you go to the Pringles Map page and scroll down to the school pairings you will see a potato next to the schools that have results. The results are for the chips that the school in that column sent. Remember to send your results to me and your partner school as soon as possible. Once again, if you have any stories or images that you would like to share, I would be more than glad to post them. For those of you buried under tons of snow, or frozen out of your buildings, don't worry about the deadlines. Get them done when you can.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Any Extra Packages?

I just received an e-mail that one school will not be able to send packages to their partner school. Does anyone have packages that they haven't sent, that they would be willing to send to another school? I'm looking for one of the schools that has a large number, so that the number being sent to their partner school wouldn't be that noticable. Or if you had straggler packages, and could send the late ones to this school, that would be great. Drop me a line at cflindgren@comcast.net if you can help.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Let the Mailing Begin!

Beginning on January 29th you can start to mail your packages. All should be sent by February 5th. Open the packages and get the scores back to the schools as quick as possible. The students really want to know how well they have done! Send the scores to me by the 16th, and I'll post them to your pages. If you know that you are not going to make the deadline for mailing, be sure to e-mail your partner school and tell them that. If for some reason you are going to be delayed in opening your partner's packages be sure to let them know. I have a scoring template at the website in Excel. Go to http://www.gatesscience.info/teamescience/howto.htm Feel free to use it. If for some reason you can't download it, e-mail me and I'll send it to you. If you have any stories or pictures you would like posted to your page, send them along.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Images and Stories

Hopefully you've made contact with your partner school and are getting to know one another. We love stories! Send me any anecdotes, digital images, etc. that occur during this process. If you send images, be sure you have permission from your school to have student's faces shown. Also, make them as low a resolution as possible to save disk space. Be sure you go to the map page and click on your school to see the special page that has been created for you. If you want anything changed, just let me know.

Partner's Contact Information

I sent e-mail messages to all of the partners this morning. Three messages failed. The teachers from the R.A. Jones Middle School, Tri-County North Middle School, and Veritas School bounced back. I tried resending and they bounced again. Get in touch with me at clindgren@scit.org and we'll try to fix it so you know your partner's information, and they can have a reliable e-mail to you, the one I included in their message is obviously no good. As far as I know, all of the others went. You should now know your partners and have all of their contact information. Be sure to communicate directly with them if you have any questions or problems. Really enjoy this. Remember, I'm only an e-mail message away.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Partners

Greetings! The selections have been made! Please go to http://www.gatesscience.info/teamescience/pringmap.htm and scroll down to the bottom to see the results. I did the best I could as far as distance and numbers were concerned. If you click on your school's name in the table you will see you unique page. I attempted to make it as attractive as possible. I grabbed mascots, logos, etc. from your sites. Please tell me if you want anything changed. Also be sure to tell me if I've violated any restrictions your district has on using information from your school's site. If I did, I'll remove it. If you have anything you want me to add to your individual page, let me know. Most importantly, if you do not see your school there, or if you know that you will not be able to do the Pringles Challenge, let me know immediately. As I've said before, the only disappointment that students get from this is not seeing their results. Each primary person will receive an e-mail from me with full contact information. This will be done as soon as circulation has returned to my hand (I've been at this a long time today), or if the Pat's game is terrible. Either way, you should receive the e-mail by the end of the day tomorrow.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Registration is Closed!

There, that's done! We have over 50 teachers, and more than 2,000 students participating! This weekend I'll be pairing you off. We're having an ice storm here on Sunday, so that's probably when it's going to happen. I try to match distances and numbers together. Expect to get an e-mail from me by Wednesday with your partner's name, school address, and e-mail. If you don't, let me know right away. The first time I did this, I actually let my students make the matches. They did a great job, but I lived in fear of them missing someone, so I do it. If a mistake is made, meaning that one of you is missed, I want it to be my fault. Wish me luck.

Charlie

New participant

Any advice from those of you who have participated before on how to get started? Also, how are you grading your students?

Thanks!

Container Size

I know that the container has a size restriction of 3 x 5, but what is the other dimension? It may have been there and I just missed it, I don't want any of the packages to get disqualified for it.

New to Pringles

Hi, I am an 8th grade science teacher in Rhode Island and I have never participated in Pringles Challenge before. I have a few questions. First, is there any recognition or awards at the end of the challenge...I ask because the students will ask me...not that I feel an award is necessary....Second, does anyone have instructional materials they are willing to share or good web links that you can suggest.....I'm kind of not sure where to start.

Thanks!
Michelle

Participants and Numbers

You can view a a list of all participating Pringles Challenge 2007 schools as of today, not including those who are doing it, but cannot fit into our time constraints (you folks are on your own, and you know who you are) at http://www.gatesscience.info/teamescience/pringmap.htm. If your school is not listed, or your number of packages (not participants) is very different from what you see here e-mail me at the registration address, and tell me what's wrong. Also, if you know that you will not be able to participate, let me know. The only downside to the Pringles Challenge is if a school fails to participate. Let me know now and I'll remove you from the list. This is the largest number of schools we have ever had participate, and I am thrilled!

Charlie

Messages and Powders

I had an interesting question about adding messages to the packages, and also about using powders as a packing material. There's nothing wrong with powders other than the fact that they add a ton of mass. You might want to add a note telling the school what the powder is. In these troubled times it doesn't hurt to be more careful. Last year we received some packages that were packed in a strange green powder. The packer had crushed the material that flowers are impaled in. When reduced to a powder, this stuff really looks strange.

Also, be careful of what you say in the messages. I'd limit them to what packing material was used, or if there are any unique methods students should use to open the remainder of the package. Don't say anything that could be misinterpreted!

Starting Pringles This Week

Our 3 6th grade classes are starting the project this week. I'm really excited to be doing Pringles again! Last year we received packages from the other schools before our students designed their own packages. The students found it easy last year to learn from other students' good and not-so-good ideas. I found last year that kids were real critical of packages that came in the mail that did not adhere to this or that specific limitation ("They put aluminum foil in this package! Horrors!"). This year, since they will be designing without the benefit of seeing other people's work first, it will be interesting to see how their thinking differs.

I'm also looking forward to reading about other schools' experiences on this blog. I hope people take advantage of this great opportunity.