If they wanted, Pat McShea and Sue McJunkin could put together really, really long resumes.

Mr. McShea, 54, of Plum, has taught biology and earth science in schools in Long Island, N.Y.; Sandusky, Ohio; Amarillo, Texas; Mobile, Ala.; and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Ms. McJunkin, 55, has taught science and social studies to pupils in Charleston, W.Va.; Alberta, Canada; Sterling Heights, Mich.; and Carmichaels.

And that's been in only the past four months.

Mr. McShea, program officer of Carnegie Museum of Natural History's distance learning initiative, and Ms. McJunkin, the project's program specialist, have not actually stepped foot in Texas, Alabama, Michigan or Canada recently.

But through the Internet and other video and sound technology, they have appeared on large television screens in elementary, junior high and high school classrooms in 23 states and Canada. They have presented programs on subjects ranging from bats, groundhogs and owls, to insects and bird nests, to rocks and minerals, arctic life, the Iroquois, ancient Egypt and everyone's favorite -- dinosaurs.

The distance learning program is interactive. The students can see and hear the teacher and the teacher can hear and see the students. Questions can be answered instantaneously.

Mr. McShea and Ms. McJunkin have illustrations, slides and museum specimens, including taxidermy mounts, at their disposal to put on the screen. A microscope camera helps deliver an up-close look of smaller specimens.

Carnegie Museum is one of about 160 institutions in the United States, Canada and a handful of other countries that offer video conference programs to school districts through the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration in Indianapolis.

Besides museums, the CILC has at its disposal zoos, science centers, aviaries, medical centers, halls of fame, corporations, performing arts centers and other facilities with the capabilities to teach.

CILC offers school districts with the technology to do video conferencing a choice of more than 1,000 subjects. Then the district will pick a museum, zoo, aviary or another kind of facility to present the program.

CILC provides the district with a description of the program being offered, as well as reviews from teachers in other school districts who have used the program.

In 2008, Carnegie Museum made 250 presentations, charging districts $125 for each one-hour program. Dinosaurs were most in demand, followed by rocks and minerals, arctic life, bats and groundhogs.

This school year, Carnegie is one of CILC's top-ranked facilities as far as positive reviews from school districts, according to Ruth Blankenbaker, 61, executive director and founder of CILC.

"They've received all gold-star rankings for multiple programs," Ms. Blankenbaker said. "That's phenomenal. It's unusual.

"Everyone giving them a gold star on teacher evaluations means that they met the objective, engaged the students, there's evidence of student learning, and that the teacher rated it an exceptional program."

Carnegie Museum has been involved in distance learning for six years and the program is on the rise. It is doing 10 times the number of presentations it did the first year. In November, the museum provided space for a new soundproof video conferencing studio with a lighting system that allows for multiple sets.

Thirty-five of the 42 school districts in Allegheny County have been getting video conferencing equipment hooked up during the past year. All will be ready to go for the 2009-10 school year.

Mr. McShea and Ms. McJunkin figure they have plenty to teach students.

"With our different cameras, there are things I can show a classroom better than if I was actually there standing in front of them," said Mr. McShea. "For instance, a vampire bat's skull is very small, about as big as your fingernail. If I held it in my hand and tried to show students, it would be difficult to see.

"But with the use of our video cameras, we can blow it up to cover the entire television screen."

Mr. McShea, who has worked in Carnegie Museum's education department for 23 years, and Ms. McJunkin, a former teacher in the Churchill School District (now Woodland Hills), can provide many facts and figures about their subjects:

• There are 1,000 kinds of bats worldwide (only nine are found in Pennsylvania).

• Spider webs are a key ingredient in a hummingbird nest.

• Feathers make up 7 percent to 10 percent of an owl's weight.

• The top of Mount Everest is marine limestone, a type of rock formed under water in the ocean. Scientists explain this phenomenon as the result of the collision between continents.

• The longest dinosaur found is a diplodocus at 90 feet, the tallest is a brachiosaur at 50 feet (the size of a four-story building). Both were plant eaters.

• Tyrannosaurus rex, a meat eater and the most famous of the dinosaurs, was about 35 feet long. Figures for the longest and tallest are expected to change with ongoing finds in the Southern Hemisphere.

With younger elementary students, Mr. McShea likes to employ "the-bait-and-switch" method of learning.

In late January and early February, he did 20 presentations on groundhogs in 10 days. Groundhog Day is Feb. 2.

"I talk to them about silly little things about Groundhog Day," said Mr. McShea. "But then I pack it with scientific information.

"I talk about hibernation and about burrowing, about how one groundhog can tunnel 65 feet, about the benefits and the problems groundhogs bring for farmers."

Linden, N.J., 20 miles south of Newark, was one school district that used Carnegie Museum for a groundhog presentation.

"The groundhog program [for our third-graders] was great. Pat does a great job," said Joe Catalino, the Linden School District's educational technology specialist. "We're an urban school district, and with budget constraints and the economic situation, it gets harder and harder [to take students places]."

Ms. McJunkin said there are definite pluses to being a video conference instructor as opposed to a classroom teacher.

She points out you don't have to worry about grades or discipline, yet you get to do the "fun" and "exciting stuff," and "you get to be the expert."

Ms. McJunkin said one of her most rewarding moments as a distance learning instructor occurred while talking about dinosaurs to second-graders in the Calhoun County (W.Va.) School District.

Calhoun had just received its distance learning equipment through a grant, but administrators there were still wondering about the feasibility of the program, Ms. McJunkin said.

As she's teaching, she sees the Calhoun superintendent, principal and curriculum director come in to observe. Just then, a little boy raises his hand and asks, " 'What do I have to do to become a paleontologist?'

"As I was answering him, I was thinking to myself, 'Young man, you may have just sold those administrators on the value of distance learning.' That little boy was already thinking about continuing his education."