EarthEcho is an international non-profit environmental education organization led by Philippe Cousteau Jr. The EarthEcho website is a hub for short video clips and educational resources. Check out one of the EarthEcho video clips embedded below- What Happens When We Flush? The site has resources for educators which can be accessed with a free online registration.
Posted in biology, high school, middle school, Video
Minute Physics has a video that provides a clear explanation for Why the Full Moon is Better in the Winter. This clip could be used with students by asking them about their initial explanations for why the full moon might be “better” in the winter. Students could share ideas and then watch the video as a source of evidence to modify their explanations.
Posted in Earth/Space science, middle school, Video
Hi all,
While we recently adopted the Next Generation Science Standards here in Washington (the state), we will still be operating our science assessment system under our 2009 Science Learning Standards for the next few years. This seems to have caused much confusion for folks. I’ve talked to several district and building leaders who thought that the Science MSPs and Biology EOC were being eliminated after this year.. not the case.
OSPI has recently uploaded the latest science assessment resources HERE. You will find:
Grade 5 Science Update: 2014 – NEW
Grade 8 Science Update: 2014 – NEW
Biology EOC Update: 2014 – NEW
Lessons Learned from Scoring Student Work: 2013 – NEW
For the last 3 years I have been dabbling in Engineering Education. Most of the work has been at the awareness level- giving K-8 teachers (inservice and preservice) an introduction to the Engineering Design Process and helping them to think about how to identify and/or add some engineering tasks to their science instruction. With the release of the Next Generation Science Standards, we now have a strong driving force for intentional K-12 engineering education.
I have multiple projects in the 2013-14 school year that involve engineering education, so I am hoping to build up my own expertise on engineering in terms of engineering content, pedagogy, and professional development practices. Moving to a K-12 focus on engineering will be new for most of us. Below I have listed just a few of my favorite engineering resources (most of them FREE and perhaps lesser known) and have organized them by category. I’ll be posting on more individual resources in the coming weeks.
Overview of Engineering Education
Appendix I of NGSS– This is the cyclical 3 part Engineering Process we should be considering
“Core Ideas of Engineering and Technology” by Cary Sneider NSTA Article
Engineering Education K-12– a 2009 report
2009 Issue of the Bridge– Linking engineering and society (has some good articles about teaching and learning engineering)
Resources on Engineering PD
Engineering Advocacy
Engineering Messaging– Provides statements and tools for making the case for engineering education
Resources for teaching about Engineering
K-5 Application (Design) Handbook
Those Darn Squirrels (Teaching Engineering with a Picture Book)
A World in Motion– Sources of FREE K-12 Design Challenges
More to come 🙂
The Next Generation Science Standards contain a strong K-12 focus on climate science and this focus may be missing in some of our instructional materials. Planet Nutshell contains several short well produced educational video clips and they have a series of 11 videos on climate science. See What is Climate? embedded below. These could provide a useful supplement.
The July 2013 issues of NSTA‘s journals all feature a focus on argumentation and explanation. Explanation and Argumentation are both Practices of Science & Engineering in the new Next Generation Science Standards. These two practices connect nicely with the Common Core Math and ELA Standards and are typically not well understood or implemented in K-12 classrooms.
These journal articles might supply a much needed focus on explanation and argumentation while also providing some tools and resources for our own professional development. I happen to be working on multiple projects this coming year related to explanation and argumentation so I hope to have much to share as the year progresses.
As usual, NSTA provides a few articles for FREE.. see below:
Science & Children (elementary science)
Science Scope (middle school)
The Science Teacher (high school)
Spend a few minutes of your summer exploring a brand new series of short geology videos from scenic Washington. These informative video clips are now available online and are hosted by Central Washington University geology professor Nick Zentner and created by Tom Foster for HUGEfloods.com . You will find 12 current episodes with more on the way at their YouTube Channel or Facebook page. These clips could be useful for providing some Earth Science content and context to K-8 learners (and teachers). See the clip on What is a Coulee? embedded below
Yesterday I recommended the book STEM Lesson Essentials Grades 3-8 as a wonderful resource for any K-8 teacher looking to dig deeper into understanding STEM education. One of my favorite parts of the book is a simple (yet powerful) page that organizes the Practices of Science, Engineering, Technology, and Mathematics in a way that helps us to make connections between these practices. I’ve adapted it into a one page document with some hyperlinks to source documents. This might be a useful resource of those of you who are building leaders, professional development providers, or teachers looking to design integrated STEM lessons. Enjoy!
K-8 teachers of science in Washington state may be interested in a FREE online workshop I created using Udemy.com as a platform.
The workshop is titled- From Systems, Inquiry, & Application to the NGSS. The goals of the workshop are for participants to:
The workshop is:
NOTES:
A. I view this as a pilot and would love feedback from participants on what worked for your learning and what could be improved. I hope to create future courses with a better production value.
B. This workshop has an intentional focus on the Washington Science Learning Standards. Participants looking for a workshop with a sole focus on the NGSS should look elsewhere.
Click HERE to access the course. Enjoy!
Well, it’s that time of year where the ongoing countdown of number of days to the end of the school year is reaching single digits for most of us. As such I’ll be posting some recommendations for professional summer reading related to science education in the coming weeks.
My first recommendation is a new book titled- STEM Lesson Essentials Grades 3-8 by Jo Anne Vasquez, Cary Sneider, and Michael Comer. STEM Lesson Essentials is a timely, readable, and usable guide to STEM literacy that won’t weigh down your beach bag. (At 178 pages it is slim but packs a punch.) See some specifics below.
PROS:
CONS:
Let me know if you would like to join me in a virtual book study over the summer. I’ve only touched the surface on this great resource.
Science for All 