Science

Even though the district is focused on math and communication arts, I make sure to remind administrators that science is a part of the state assessment as well. I also work with my department to identify the standards that we need to focus on. Some opposition that I have come across is the sixth grade teachers who want to do the fun activities with their students even if those activties do not cover any standards. Seventh grade also shows some resistance to change because all three teachers have taught for over fifteen years and see no reason to teach differently. The eighth grade teachers work together to encourage the other grades to embrace change for the benefit of the students.

Keeping up

Keeping up
I do not agree with Friedman, who believes that the United States is spending too much of their resources on world issues like fighting the Al Qaeda (Friedman, 2010). I believe that after 911 the United States has no choice but to spend their resources protecting their citizens from terrorism. I do think that funds spent in education should be spent directly in classrooms instead of being spent on assessments that compare apples to oranges.
The nation created the No Child Left Behind Act to improve education, but it requires students to show progress over the students who took the test the previous year rather than comparing their individual progress from year to year (Research Center: No Child Left Behind, 2004). This creates the national crisis that I see in education which is a shift from how well an individual student is learning to how well a student can do on the state assessments. This has forced schools to concentrate on only mathematics and reading, instead of being able to give their students a well rounded education which includes science and history. The elementary schools are reducing time spent on science and history to add more minutes to mathematics and reading. The money spent on writing, overseeing and grading these assessments would be more beneficial being spent directly in the schools to provide more for the students.

Friedman, T. (2010, January 17). What's our Sputnik? [Op-Ed]. The New York Times (Late edition (east Coast)), p. 8. Retrieved from the ProQuest Central database.

Research Center: No Child Left Behind. (2004, September 24). Education Week American Education News Site of Record. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/no-child-left-behind/

Running water Erosion lab

This week I implemented a lab on running water erosion. I used a stream table, sand and a hose connected to a faucet. Students were put into groups of four for their lab groups. Each group took a turn at the stream table completing four trials. For the first three trials the angle of incline was increased. The students carved a river path and then ran water down the river while watching for erosion and deposition. On the fourth trial, the groups used rocks to try to prevent erosion.

I felt this lab was very sucessful. The students were actively engaged and by the end of the lab, they were able to correctly use the terms: erosion, deposition, oxbow lake and delta.

week 3 natural disasters

To help my students be aware of how natural disasters have affected people in the past, I share real life stories with my students as we study the natural disaster. I show video clips and show data of the number of lives lost and amount of people displaced due to the disaster. I also allow my students share their stories of how disasters have affected their lives.

This year I have added some activities to help the students be aware of current events. The first activity is current event time. Prior to class each day, I create a powerpoint with links of current science news videos and stories. One website that I use is sciencedaily.com (Daily, n.d.)Then during the last seven or eight minutes of class, I share with my students current science events that are in the news and the class discusses them. When the Chilean miners were stuck in the mine, the students would come in talking about what the latest developments were in their story and the day they were rescued, we watched on the smartboard as they came up and greeted their families. We also monitor the hurricanes during hurricane season and any other natural disasters that occur. To help the students become more compassionate, we discuss what losses the people in the areas have had to deal with due to the disaster like the lives of family and friends, housing and memorabilia and their sense of security.

The second story is an assignment of an article summary on a current science event. The students select a current science news story and write two paragraphs, one summarizing their story and the second about how their story impacts people's lives. As they turn in their summaries, the students share them with the class. The rest of the class asks questions and makes comments.

Through our character education program, the students select a relief effort to contribute to and participate in fundraising events to collect money, canned goods or clothes to send to countries in need. Sometimes the collections go towards our community and sometimes they are more focused on global needs.

Daily. (n.d.) Science Daily:Natural Disaster News. Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/news

Ask a scientist

I posted the following question to the Ask a Scientist website in week 2, "How did scientists discover what each organelle's function is?" Unfortunately, no answer was found on the website and I did not receive an email response, either. In our discussion last week, Moses Mitchell did give me an answer, which was, "scientists are able to see what each protein does and another interesting part is seeing what proteins are shared (have in common) with other organisms" (Mitchell, 2010, September 19). I plan to research this further to see if there are more specifics on identifying the organelles.
I have mixed feelings about using a site like this in my classroom. I think if the students receive no response to their question, then it would be frustrating for them, but if they receive a response, then it helps them to see that scientists are real people that they can relate to. I think a more beneficial idea would be to have scientists be guest speakers in the classroom.

Mitchell, M. (2010, September 19). Ask a Scientist. Message posted to EDUC 6662 discussion board, Week 2.

Presentation tools

For this week's blog assignment, I chose to look at VCASMO and 280 Slides, because I knew that I would want to add both pictures and videos to my presentation.

VCASMO has a dual screen, so in one screen you can show a video while the other screen shows a slide show. VCASMO has many examples of other presentations that have been created for you to look at. It seemed fairly simple to synchronize the video to the slides. I would not reccomend using this presentation tool for the course project, unless your endangered species is local to your area and you are able to obtain extensive video footage of the animalin it's natural enviroment.

280 slides is an online presentation tool similar to powerpoint. You can easily add photos and videos to your presentation. I would reccomend 280 slides for the course project because it is easy to use even for less than technical savvy people like me. 280 Slides has a presentation tour that you can take and experiment with. It can also be saved as a powerpoint, if you need to use it where there is no internet access.

280 Slides - Create & Share Presentations Online. (n.d.). 280 Slides - Create & Share Presentations Online. Retrieved September 11, 2010, from http://280slides.com

VCASMO- Home. (n.d.). VCASMO - Home. Retrieved September 11, 2010, from http://vcasmo.com

Thermodynamics

The concept that I selected is thermodynamics. I researched this concept and chose the web sites that would be the most useful and interesting for my eighth grade students.
One way to engage my students would be through the use of a short video clip shown on my smartboard. I found such a clip at http://www.discoveryeducation.comwhich my district subscribes to. The clip is called The Three Laws of Thermodynamics and is two minutes and eleven seconds long (Discovery Education, 2006).
Once I have my students engaged, then I would take my students to the computer lab where I will direct them to a track that I will make at http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar which will go along with a worksheet.
The first web site for my track would be on the history of Thermodynamics. The web site that I have selected for this is http://mooni.fccj.org/~ethall/thermo/thermo.htm. This site describes the contributions of several scientists into the developing of the laws of thermodynamics (Thall, n.d.).
Secondly, I would have the students go to the website physics4kids and read about thermodynamics. The website http://www.physics4kids.com/files/thermo_intro.html
has several pages of information on thermodynamics and an interactive quiz at the end for students to test how much they have learned.
Next, I would have students go to the physics interactive applet http://jersey.uoregon.edu/vlab/Thermodynamics/index.html where they are able to manipulate temperature to solve a series of problems on thermodynamic equilibrium. One physical science activity that I could do to go along with this activity is taking colored hot water and mixing it with cold water to see the diffusion of the temperature.
Last, I would have some additional websites available for students of different abilities: for low reading levels I prefer http://www.kids.esdb.bg/basic_principles.html, for my average learners I would use the site http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/light_lessons/thermal/transfer.html. For my gifted students I would use the site http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html Through this activity the students will be engaged through a video, gain knowledge of the history and definitions, and use their learning to experiment with thermodynamics.
One challenge that I would have for this activity would be getting the computer lab time. Math and reading use the computer lab regularly for testing objectives and it is difficult to find blocks of time open for other subject areas.


References
Bothun, Greg. “Thermodynamic Equilibrium.” Physics Applets. Retrieved June 12, 2010, from http://jersey.uoregon.edu/vlab/Thermodynamics/index.html
Discovery Education. (2006). The Three Laws of Thermodynamics [Video Segment]. Available from http://www.discoveryeducation.com/
Esd Bulgaria. “Energy Principles.” Kids and Energy. Retrieved June 12, 2010 from http://www.kids.esdb.bg/basic_principles.html
Hermans-Killam, Linda & Daou, Doris. “How does heat travel?” Cool Cosmos. Retrieved June 12, 2010 from http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/light_lessons/thermal/transfer.html
Nave, Carl Rod. “Heat and Thermodynamics.” Hyperphysics. Retrieved June 12, 2010 from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html
Rader, Andrew. “Thermodynamics.” Physics4kids. Retrieved June 12, 2010, from http://www.physics4kids.com/files/thermo_intro.html
Thall, E. (n.d.). Thermodynamics: Who Wrote the Laws?. Thall's website. Retrieved June 12, 2010, from http://mooni.fccj.org/~ethall/thermo/thermo.htm
TrackStar : Home. (n.d.). TrackStar : Home. Retrieved June 12, 2010, from http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/