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SpaceMet

If your system doesn't carry K12, but has access to telnet, you can reach it through SpaceMet Forum, a bulletin-board system aimed at teachers and students that is run by the physics and astronomy department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The address is spacemet.phast.umass.edu. When you connect, hit escape once. Like K12, SpaceMet Forum began as a Fidonet system, but has since grown much larger. Mort and Helen Sternheim, professors at the university, started SpaceMet as a one-line bulletin-board system several years ago to help bolster middle-school science education in nearby towns.

Today, there is a whole series of satellite SpaceMet BBSs in western Massachusetts and SpaceMet itself is now linked to Fidonet and Internet.

In addition to the K12 conferences, SpaceMet carries numerous educationally oriented conferences. It also has a large file library of interest to educators and students, but be aware that getting files to your site could be difficult and maybe even impossible. Unlike most other Internet sites, Spacemet does not use an ftp interface. The Sternheims say ZMODEM sometimes works over the network, but don't count on it.

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