November 6, 1997

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SAN DIEGO SCHOOLS TO PARTICIPATE IN MICKEY MOUSE WEBCAST Two San Diego elementary schools, Rosa Parks and Benchley-Weinberger, will be among eleven schools in the country to participate in a live webcast with Disney animators, from 10 a.m. to noon on Thursday, November 13. The project is sponsored by Disney and Cox Communications. Disney animator Betsy Baytos will appear in a ten-minute live-feed video coming over the internet, showing students how to draw Mickey Mouse, and how to make a character walk and talk like Goofy. Following the video, students will have a chance to interact live with Baytos and ask her questions about the history of animation. At Benchley-Weinberger, students from kindergarten and first grade will be teamed up with fifth-graders who have internet access on their classroom computers. All the net-access computers will then be hooked up to a television for the video feed. A similar set-up is planned at Rosa Parks. Disney is providing teachers with resource material for the project, and is also providing students with special sketchpads to be used during the animation art lesson.