Time Warner Cable honors Lord

 PRESQUE ISLE, Maine – For the sixth time in his illustrious teaching career, Presque Isle High School’s Richard Lord has received a Time Warner Cable National Teacher Award.
    Lord was chosen for his project, “Germs Gone Wild.” High school students researched infectious disease pandemics of the past and future relating them to their own lives, as well as to the study of microbiology. Using cable resources such as The History Channel, juniors and seniors studied the Black Death, the Spanish Influenza pandemic, and the possible threat of the Avian Influenza.
“If you want to enter this contest,” said Lord, “you have to develop a project to use in your class that uses cable television programming and/or the Internet. I found a program last fall on The History Channel about the Black Death, and with all the commotion about the bird flu, I developed a project where we studied the Black Death (a bacterial disease), the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic (a viral disease), which really hit hard here in Presque Isle; and then looked at the Avian Influenza or bird flu using another program from The History Channel, as well as an ABC movie on the bird flu to show what scientists predict would happen.”
Lord and his students spent about a month working on the “Germs Gone Wild” project.
“The unit itself was an intro to microbiology, and the ‘Germs Gone Wild’ project was a lot of work,” he said, “but I knew the students would get a lot out of it. The quality of their final projects proved that.”
For more than a decade, Lord has been using television programming in his classroom.
“We use videos when they’re appropriate,” he said. “I don’t use a lot of videos, but if I find something that works, I try to fit it in.
“It’s a way of giving kids a better picture of how things in the past happened,” said Lord. “The video on the plague was a docu-drama and they actually showed the people the way they lived back then, and you really understood what it was like to live through that time period.”
For their culminating activity, students created products such as Power Point presentations, videos, children’s books and plays that communicated to a larger audience their understanding of the effects and consequences of pandemics.
“One group made a video of a future bird flu epidemic as it might happen in Presque Isle,” said Lord. “They wrote their script, acted it, filmed and edited it … it was really impressive.
“Some students did posters, models … one group made a survival kit containing things you’d need if you had the flu back then, others made scrapbooks,” he said. “A couple of kids did things that were directly related to their families. One boy found that his great-grandfather was a farmer here and couldn’t harvest the crops because everyone had the flu. They were all very interesting and creative.”
Lisa Simonds of Time Warner Cable said the awards “recognize outstanding efforts to enrich the classroom learning experience using cable programming or technology resources.”
In congratulating Lord, Simonds said, “Your dedication, creative energy and enthusiasm are clear in the work submitted for this recognition. Your students are fortunate to have you as their teacher and we are proud to support you in these efforts.”
PIHS Principal Eric Waddell was equally pleased with Lord’s accomplishment.
“Mr. Lord is a jewel in our crown here at Presque Isle High School,” said Waddell. “He is so committed to the program, and his students benefit from that. I’m pleased that Time Warner Cable recognizes teachers who incorporate educational video programming in a positive, productive, and educationally-sound way.”
Lord said he’s pleased to be recognized for what he’s doing in the classroom.
“I’ve actually entered seven times and have won six. I hold the record nationally, so that means a lot to me,” he said. “It’s nice that someone outside thinks that what I do is valuable.”
In addition to the crystal apple award and certificate, Lord will receive $2,000, as well as $3,000 for school technology advancement. The award banquet will be held June 5 in Washington, D.C.