|
Claim: Students at an elementary school are collecting e-mail messages for a school project.
Examples:
Origins: As more and more schools have become "wired," sending out the Internet equivalent of messages tied to balloons has become a popular class project. Create a message that identifies you and asks the finder to write back, set it adrift in cyberspace, and collect responses from all over the world. As most of the schools that try this are finding out, however, it isn't quite the same thing as letting balloons fly, because the number of responses received is no longer limited by the number of balloons launched. A single Classes of schoolchildren who expect to spend a little time each day tabulating the responses they receive end up overwhelmed by their success, as was the case at both of the schools cited in the examples above. The Taylorsville Elementary School project was scheduled to run from Folks keep on trying, though. April 2002 saw the launching of yet another effort:
Subject: Kids Science Project
This project, too, ended far earlier than anticipated, as the auto-response on the account informed senders:
Hey this is easy - Hi: I am a science teacher at an elementary school in Los Angeles, California. A few of my sixth grade students are working on a project for our 2002 Science Fair to be held There are only 2 simple steps that will help us to track this email: 1. Please send an e-mail to the following address: science2002fair@yahoo.com In the subject of the e-mail please include your city, state, and country. You do not need to include your name. Please respond only one time. 2. Please forward this e-mail to everyone on your mailing list. We will be keeping track of the number of responses, as well as the locations. Therefore, send them even to people in the same town. In our science project, we are trying to rate how fast and how far information can travel on the Internet in a six week period. If you receive this Thank you VERY much for your help!
Thank you for participating in our e-mail science project. Due to the overwhelming amount of daily
Another entry from March 2002 was over almost as soon as it had begun:
Subject: A school project we can help with
Just a few days after this message from a rural New Zealand school hit the Internet, messages sent to the address supplied began to bounce with an "exceeded storage allocation" error message. (Some versions of this entry include the same names and e-mail address, but claim to be from an Austrlian school.)
Hello, Kia Ora! We are Year 8 students at Taonui School, a rural school located near Feilding, in the Manawatu province of New Zealand. Our teacher, Mr Small is helping us with this project. We have decided to map the progress of an email. We are interested in finding out "Where in the World' our email will go. We are starting our project on We would appreciate your help. If you receive this message, we ask that you: 1. Email us back at taonuischool@hotmail.com and tell us your location, by city, state and country. We will plot these locations on our map. 2. Forward this email and send it to everyone on your address list. They, in turn, can send it to all their contacts. This will help us to reach as many people as possible. After collecting the email messages and plotting them on a map, we will graph the number of responses we have received by state and country. With your help, this project will be a very exciting learning experience for us. Thank you. Amy Davis-Herbison and Nikolai Gorinski Another DOA message from British Columbia was bouncing its responses with a "User unknown" error in mid-April:
I am a teacher at Haney-Pitt Meadows Christian school in Maple Ridge British Columbia Canada, A few of my sixth grade students are working on a project for our 2002 Science Fair to be held
Responses sent to these Florida elementary school students (whose message unwisely specified no beginning or end date) were bouncing with a non-specific error in late April 2002:
1. Please send an e-mail to the following address: emailproject2002@aol.com. In the subject of the 2. Please forward this e-mail to everyone on your mailing list. We will be keeping track of the number of responses, as well as the locations. Therefore, send them even to people in the same town. In our science project, we are trying to rate how fast and how far information can travel on the Internet in a four week period. If you receive this
Kid's Survey
The only school project to generate a valid response for us so far was this one from a Pittsburgh elementary school, although that may be only because we managed to catch them within a few days of their starting date:
Hello! We are in Mrs. Sheckells second grade class at Crystal Lake Elementary School in Stuart, Florida. We are doing an experiment for our class in which we are trying to see where our email can travel in the space of one month. We will keep track of how many emails we get and from which cities, states, and countries. We are hoping you will be willing to help us in our project. There are just 1. Please send an email containing your city, state, and country to sheckem@martin.k12.fl.us You do not need to include your name. Please only respond one time. 2. Forward this letter to as many people as you possible can. We are going to keep track of actual numbers of responses from individual cities, so send it even to those that live in the same town. We have decided to only do the tracking for Thank you for your participation in our experiment. We can't wait to start receiving those emails! Thank you Mrs. Sheckells Second Grade Teacher Crystal Lake Elementary Have a wonderful day!!
We are in Mrs. Kolenik¹s computer class at St. John the Baptist School in Pittsburgh, PA. We are conducting an experiment for our class in which we are trying to see where our email can travel in the space of one month. We will keep track of how many emails we get and from which cities, states, and countries. We are hoping you will be willing to help us in our project.
Last updated: 5 January 2008
There are just 2 simple steps that will allow us to track this email: 1. Please send an email containing your city, state, and country to mailbox@stjohnthebaptistschool.org You do not need to include your name. Please respond only one time. 2. Forward this letter to as many people as you possible can. We are going to keep track of actual numbers of responses from individual cities, so send it even to those that live in the same town. We have decided to only do the tracking for 1 month. We have chosen to monitor this project from Thank you Mrs. Kolenik Computer Teacher St. John the Baptist School Pittsburgh, PA This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com. |
|
