April 9, 2012

As you prepare to travel to Vancouver, we wanted to share the schedule of SIG-sponsored sessions happening this year. Symposia, roundtables, and the business meeting will take place at the Sheraton Wall Centre. Poster sessions take place at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Temperatures are expected to be in the low to mid 50s each day with nightime temps in the low to mid 40s, so you'll want to bring something to keep you warm. There is a 20-50% of showers most day - might want to include an umbrella or raincoat on your packing list.

I know you've all seen the reminders for US citizens to bring their passports. But, did you know that you also need to allow enough time prior to your return flight home to go through customs? Most airlines flying into the US will have you go through customs in the Vancouver airport rather than your destination airport, so be sure to leave adequate time when heading out to the airport after the conference (15-20 minutes for customs is usually adequate).

We also want to encourage you to attend our SIG business meeting on Sunday, April 15th, from 6:15-7:45 in South Galiano, on the Fourth Level of the Sheraton Wall Centre. We will have veggies, dip, tea sandwiches, plus wine, coffee, and water, available during the meeting. Following a short business meeting and update by our chair, Patrick Jenlink, we will have a keynote presentation by Lance Vikaros of Teachers College. His presentation is titled "Using Knowledge Visualization to Understand and Assess Systems Thinking."

We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Vancouver. For those of you not making the trip this year, we will miss you and hope to see you next year in San Francisco!

Cheers!

Jan Noga and Gary Skolits
Program Co-Chairs
AERA Systems Thinking in Education SIG