U -- INTERACTIVE CD-ROM WITH A TEACHER GUIDE

U-EDUCATIONAL SERVICES - This Modification M001 is to delete and replace the synopsis in its entirety. The U.S. Department of Commerce/NOAA intends to negotiate with Illinois Education Associates for an Xtreme Weather interactive CD-ROM and Teachers Guide. The Illinois Education Association-NEA (IEA-NEA) is the only known state professional education association to have designed a statewide curriculum with an interactive and developmentally appropriate educational program for teachers which will enable them to provide their students with the following: fundamental science concepts of severe weather, severe weather safety precautions and how to undertake appropriate preparedness actions. There are several advantages to having staff from a state education association design a curriculum: - The association staff knows both the national and state science standards. - The association staff has an available clientele of member teachers and can communicate with them to both beta test the product and to distribute the final product. - The association staff can evaluate the product after initial beta testing. - The association staff can encourage the state teachers to use the product. IEA is a professional association of 120,000 members composed of Illinois elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty and staff, educational support professionals, retired educators and college students preparing to become teachers. The staff of the organization works to meet the needs of its teacher members in a number of ways. One of the important functions of an association is to provide for professional development opportunities and the Xtreme Weather curriculum project began as a professional development opportunity. The project began when staff from IEA-NEA worked with several meteorologists from the Lincoln, Illinois, National Weather Service Forecast Office to develop a project that could help teachers to better understand the science concepts in meteorology. IEA staff asked local NOAA employees to help identify the necessary weather information that every middle school teacher needs. As the body of science information was delivered from weather forecasters, the staff from IEA-NEA worked to align the NOAA-provided weather information with the state science standards. This requirement will complete an existing rough draft of a CD-ROM and ultimately it will provide 500 middle school teachers with the science information by way of an interactive CD-ROM, an accompanying Teacher Workbook and the technical training required to utilize these resources. This sole source vendor has the necessary expertise to handle the educational aspects of the project and to make the educational aspects conform to the science standards. All teachers in the United States must have their classroom work aligned to these science standards. Offeror's who believe they can meet this requirement are required to submit in writing an affirmative response from acknowledged entities as having expertise and a high level of competency in the field. All written responses must include a written narrative statement of capability, including detailed technical information demonstrating their ability to meet the above requirements. The response must be sufficient to permit agency analysis to establish a bonafide capability to meet the requirements. Failure to submit such documentation will result in the Government proceeding as stated above. A determination by the Government not to open the requirement to competition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Affirmative written responses must be received no later than 15-days after publication of this synopsis. All information in response to this notification must be submitted in writing to the address contained at the header or faxed to +1 (555) 000-0000 or 0808/09 to the attention of G. Jean Hairston and Solicitation No. DG1330-04-RQ-0150(GJH).