Acknowledgments

There are many people who have contributed to the development of Curiosity Creek over the years. This has been a labor of love for me and I've never had much of a budget to work with or enough time to fully dedicate myself to this effort. Hence,  I've never felt quite ready to go live but finally, here I go. So, please consider this still a work in progress.

First and foremost, I want to credit Mr. Thomas Hardy of Data Momentum for his unending support. He has continously put up with my requesting just a little more of him and his organization.  More importantly, I have for years been able to talk about ideas with him and he is truly a concept person with great vision.  Working with Tom, Marcin Czaja has aptly led the programming effort and has gone above the call of duty, at times. As a graphic designer, his wife, Dorota, has contributed to the whimsical look and feel of the site.

I also want to acknowledge my colleague, Dr. Ruth V. Small, who has always believed in my Curiosity Creek project,  encouraged me, and shared ideas with me. Even one of the characters, Digger, is modeled after her grand-dog! So, thanks, Dr. Ruth! Another colleague, Dr. Tiffany A. Koszalka, believed in Curiosity Creek enough to start an after-school computer club with Curiosity Creek as the theme. We had so much fun with that project and many of the students' we worked with ended up publishing their stories on the site.

My dear friend, Marguerite Chadwick-Juner, a talented artist has been a wonderful support to me. Working with characters from my earlier Curious Kids' book series originally illustrated by Gerry Stockley with graphic designer Andrea Reeves, Marguerite created the first Flash designs and intricate backgrounds. She has taken me through a number of logo designs and even painted my tiny studio to look like the inside of a log cabin. That's where I do my many booktalks and other segments.

There have also been a number of my students who along the way have served as my assistants and contributed effort, as well. These include Raji Alexander, Kiran Nagaraj, Kannan AMR, and Akshat Kumar who came up with the idea of using my homepage to show new videos each day and strived for a clean, uncluttered layout. There have also been librarians who contributed lesson plans and teaching ideas. Finally, and although she is the last of my students to be mentioned, Colleen Wilson has worked with me the longest among my students and has created many story puzzles, matching games, posters, and many other creative contributions. I must say that it has been an absolute pleasure working with this future school librarian. Any school will be fortunate to have Colleen in their school library!

These acknowledgments would be incomplete if I didn't mention the most important people of all -- the young learners who are sharing their stories, poems, posters, and other works about nature on this site!

Thanks to all!

Marilyn Arnone