We welcome you to our second newsletter. If you want to find out what you missed in the first one, contact us and we'll mail one. Alternatively, look on our...

CAAS Website - Coming Into Focus!

Yes! That's right! You can find us on the internet at www.edu.york.ca/caas. As you can see, our site is on the York University Faculty of Education server. (Several of our Academic Advisors are part of this Faculty.) Thanks York!

At the moment our site is very much "under construction" but some of the standard features you will find on it - SOON, if not now - include:

• Biographical sketches and photos of the academics, teachers, elders and other experts who volunteer their time for the CAAS, and of our Coordinators;
• Professional development and curriculum resources;
• Past and current CAAS Newsletters;
• Acknowledgement, with gratitude, of our funders;
• Our Statement of Purpose (also found on page 3 of this Newsletter);
• Descriptions of our current projects:
  - the Student Awareness Survey;
  - the website portion of Teachers Teach Teachers
  - research and comparative study on the current content of mandated Aboriginal Studies curriculum across Canada;
  - developing our own set of Proposed Learning Expectations - essentially a definition of what students ought to know about First Peoples' history, culture and contemporary concerns by the time they graduate high school;
  - preliminary planning for a national conference re: strategies for promoting Aboriginal Studies in elementary and secondary schools across Canada;
  - annual Partners' Meetings.

One of the most exciting pieces of our website is something that you won't find there - YET... an interactive Question & Answer service for classroom teachers who are struggling with how to handle certain topics, how to find appropriate resources, etc. We're working on design and promotion strategies this Fall.

As we move ahead with content and design, we are very conscious that our site is critically important for the 'action research' aspects of our work. One day soon, our site will provide contact information for educators and resource people in YOUR region - people you might contact to share resources, concerns, teaching tips and political strategies for bringing Aboriginal perspectives into your classroom.

Elaboration on most of these projects is found on the following pages...

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