This blog is a bit late, but I wanted to provide an update on the last two days of our trip visiting prospective communities north of Reno last week.

On Monday, October 29, Marc and I met up with the middle school and high school science teachers in Tulelake, located on the California/Oregon border.  They were very enthusiastic and plan to talk with others in their community about participating.

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We then drove through Alturas and stopped by the local library.  The librarian there, Cheryl, provided several suggestions of individuals from Alturas and Cedarville who might be interested in participating.  One of these leads has resulted in potential connections with Surprise Valley High School.

That afternoon, we stopped by Lassen High School in Susanville for a followup visit with the science teachers there and also a tour of their campus.  Following this quick visit, we ended our day in Reno.

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On Tuesday, we had a very productive meeting with three science teachers from Carson High School.  One of these teachers has been coordinating with volunteers from the Jack C. Davis Observatory in Carson City to involve his students in occultation research already.    We also enjoyed meeting with an amateur astronomer who drove up to meet us from Gardnerville who is interested in joining our project by purchasing his own camera setup to use at his personal observatory.

Finally, we received a very thorough tour of the University of Nevada Reno campus from faculty there. We are still making arrangements regarding the venue for our training workshop to be held in late March or early April.

Over the course of our six day tour, Marc and I were able to meet up with 39 individuals in a total of 12 meetings.  We were both very encouraged by the level of interest and enthusiasm as well as diversity and character found in each community we visited. We look forward to receiving Community Team Applications and Observation Mentor Applications for all that we visited and more. We will begin reviewing these applications on December 3 and plan to identify our key network leaders before the end of the year.

Thanks to all who were able to meet up with us on our trek and for those of you who are following our blog posts.  Feel free to contact recon@calpoly.edu for additional information on our project.