This month, we recognize Jenny Hoffman and Nicole Vishio, teachers at the Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont, PA, who presented and published a very innovative classroom project titled Project Vofmio.

To introduce a greater emphasis on natural resources and environmental stewardship to the curriculum, Jenny and Nicole initiated a group project to design a sustainable community for approximately 500 colonists on a fictitious, recently discovered, Earthlike planet. The two teachers presented their work at the Northeastern/Southeastern Section of the Geological Society of America meeting on March 15, 2010, in Baltimore, MD. You can find an abstract of their GSA presentation and the full description of Project Vofmio in the Winter 2009 issue of The Earth Scientist, titled "Designing sustainable communities: an inquiry based approach to teaching Earth systems science."

Congratulations to Jenny and Nicole for sharing their creative curricular materials through a conference presentation and publication! You are clearly both PAESTARs.