Natural Disasters

With hurricane Sandy and other natural disasters there is always room for students to learn and help.  For this I always refer to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. I was in college when this happened and in early January 2005 while taking a geography class we spent a lot of time covering the tsunami.  It was obviously still heavily covered in the news and it proved a great opportunity for our class.  With college there is more leeway but we ended up straying from the normal curriculum of the class and ended up focusing the whole semester on the tsunami.  We covered everything in open forum discussions from the loss of life to economical repercussions.   Obviously globalization meant that this disaster would have an impact on everything like ecosystems and even refugees fleeing the wreckage.   In the long run I felt that the whole experience opened me up to being culturally sensitive and more in touch with what is going on in the world and media.  As a side effect the whole class felt this way and we all contributed to Red Cross relief funds.

Obviously I feel that sharing current events can have a huge impact on how students view science.  Natural disasters are no exception.  Now in public schools we can’t spend too much time away from curriculum but I feel that it is good to expose your students to big events like this, show how they are significant to science, politics and on a global scale, and even encourage those who can to help out in anyway.  The Red Cross is always a way to help but sometimes there is ways to emotionally help.  With every tragedy there is fear and anger and it often hits close to home.  I teach in a culturally diverse area and it’s likely that I have taught people whose family may have been affected by some form of disaster.  A simple assignment of writing a poem about or for survivors can really be uplifting.  Even now with social media it is easier to share this kind of stuff and in the long run it could make all the difference by either cheering up a person or inspiring another to donate.

The two web tools I have investigated for my project are Prezi and Animoto.  

I have found that Prezi is pretty neat.  It has a lot of features and seems easy to use.  With a lot of videos on how to use it and videos that show ideas of the things you can do it seems very friendly to new users.  I like the idea of clickable links that can take you from one subject to an area with more information instead of just moving from one slide to another like a Powerpoint. Plus Prezi also has an iPad app for Apple users.  Overall I fell like a Prezi presentation’s look and design is similar to navigating a website.

Animoto was also interesting.  It too takes pride that it differs from the normal slideshow presentation.  Animoto is instead a way to create a multimedia presentation (video) from using text, music and photos.  The main difference is that Animoto does not offer a viewer the option to explore on their own.  This can be a plus or a negative.  On one hand information is presented and a viewer does not have to search for it. On the other there is not a good way to present additional information if a viewer wants to seek it out.  Prezi has this option by adding additional links for people to dive deeper into the information.

Honestly either of these presentations tools would be a good choice.  The one thing I will say is having so many options of what you can do in Prezi seems cool but also overwhelming.

Interactive gaming for lessons

                An interesting subject matter for many of my students is space.   It’s a question that come up often (are we going to talk about space?) and because of the time limitations of the year and the vast amount of content we cover there is little time to cover this topic or really rather any topic the students might want to learn about that is outside of our curriculum.                 Being a life science teacher there is little room for really anything that is not related to the human body, evolution or ecology as these are major subject point and take up many units during our year.   However, if I was able to teach a subject that I know might interest my students I would choose space.

                A program I found on the internet that combines space and elements of physics is called: http://sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/gravity.html   it’s a simulation that allows students to adjust thrust and angle to try and meet goals of orbiting a rocket around different objects in space (i.e. the Earth, moon etc. ).  While I have seen many programs like this one( often games for students),  this one differs by the fact that the game is effected by gravitational pull of the various planets you attempt to orbit.  This makes it hard to get things right on the first try and there is a help button that goes along by explaining how gravity works.  The online interaction as well as entering data (angle and thrust) is a great way to get students comfortable and familiar with running computer programs that rely on numbers.

                If I were to use something like this in the classroom I would obviously pair it with short answer questions like” how does thrust/ angle affect trajectory?” or “how does gravity differ on earth or the moon?”.   To tie into stem careers and deeper learning I would most likely try to find a short video clips about various gravitational pulls of planets.

                I suppose my main point is that interactive games can offer a lot of science insight as well.   Recently a new Angry Birds Space game came out and it is similar to this computer program.  Using sling shots , gravity and a target students can learn about momentum , kinetic vs potential energy and even things like friction.  As far as I know this program is only available on cell phones and this would become an issue when trying to use it in the classroom.

Momentum Inquiry Design

In the momentum experiment I chose to investigate “How do different surfaces affect the momentum of marbles”.  Even though I teach life science, my knowledge of general science greatly helped me in the investigation.  In fact I was pretty sure of the outcome of any of the proposed questions but not sure how to test for all of them.  I saw a specific challenge with working with marbles and wondered what is the best way to launch them onto different surfaces.  Obviously flicking would not allow me to maintain a control speed as it is impossible to flick with the same amount of force at all times. I eventually did realize that I could use gravity and send the marble down a slope (another control) and get a constant start speed.

            From this point I chose to test surfaces that were readily available in my classroom along with a rug I could easily bring in from home.  I ended up testing two different carpet textures and both a textured and smooth tile.  My results showed that the smoother the surface (less friction) the farther and faster the ball would roll.  Ultimately I consider the experiment a success but would like to change things if I was to use this in the future with my students.  For example I believe a bigger ball would allow for more variation in the test. This is because carpets would almost immediately stop the marble where a large ball could roll better over the fibers.  Also more surfaces like sand, sandpaper and even ice might help make the experiment a little longer and more fun.  Even adding in accelerants like olive oil or WD-40 could add a more things to try out.  I think since it is an open experiment students should be able to test different ideas they have and see if they have effects on the friction of a certain surface.

            Learning about friction, momentum and even the importance of keeping controls the same are all good lessons that could come out of this one experiment. I think if I were to do this with my students I would have more options for testing i.e. let them choose the type of ball and surfaces.  Lastly I think that to relate this to students’ lives it would be cool to talk about sports and how soccer, golf and hockey are all affected by friction and how design of equipment and sports technologies accounts for this.

My Structured Inquiry Lesson was centered around our unit on genetics.  In the lesson, students created fish based on the given traits of the “parents.”  They flipped a coin (incorporating the probability aspect of genetics) to determine whether the recessive or dominant allele was being passed on from the parent to the offspring. They were given a data chart to organize their work and a list of the various traits along with pictures of many of them (i.e. tail shape, eye shape, fin size and shape, and body shape).  After gathering their data, students used the genotypes and phenotypes of their offspring fish to create a visual representation of the newly created fish.  The students did this by drawing and coloring their fish. 

Students really enjoyed this activity and were engaged throughout.  I could definitely tell that learning was taking place based on my observations of them and a concluding class discussion.  The vocabulary and genetics concepts targeted in this lesson are easily understood through the use of the graphic organizer (data chart).  The three student work samples included show that students have gained a better understanding of dominant and recessive traits, genotypes, phenotypes, and how traits are passed from parent to offspring.

Please click here to view my student work samples.

Melting Polar Ice Caps

Global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps has been a hot topic for everyone including environmentalists and politicians. With the global annual rising temperatures it seems the possibility of most of the polar ice caps melting is possible in the future.  Furthermore, this situation will have dramatic effects on the Earth as a whole.

The most significant changes would take place low-lying areas where flooding would occur.  While flooding is often debated it will in fact take place if the polar ice caps melted.  It is true that the North Pole would not cause flooding because this ice is floating in water.  Therefore, this ice melting would not increase ocean levels.   Where there is room for concern is in Antarctica and other land masses with significant ice coverage where the ice is not already contributing to ocean level.  If this were all to melt it would run off into the oceans and dramatically change the sea level.

Rising sea levels would have a huge impact on ecosystems.  First of all the salinity levels in the oceans could change and lead to loss of marine life.  Depending on the high amount of change this could wipe out many species including those that are key stone species in food chains thus affecting fishing industries and human life.  Also there would be a substantial amount of habitat loss in the Arctic and areas at low elevations. Many low lying countries, like island chains, could be completely under water.

Human life would be affected by the ice caps melting.  Depending on the severity of flooding and other changes there may not be a viable food source for the planet. This can be taken into account by the loss of marine life and farmland.

As far as our science experiment is concerned I wonder if there would be some way to implement the factor of ice melting that is on land and not floating in the sea.  Some additional questions I might consider are as follows:

• Is there a way to incorporate salinity testing / salinity changes into this experiment?
• What reading material could I use to engage students prior to beginning the experiment?
• What could be added to this experiment to induce further learning, analyzing or creating like the top tier of Blooms Taxonomy?

STEM Lesson for Diverse Learners - "Run and Write"

My STEM lesson that I created focuses around the functions of the body systems.  Body systems are a major part of my Georgia’s 7^th grade curriculum.  The lesson begins with activating prior knowledge by a short group activity.  In the activity, students will work in small groups to match each of the body systems with the riddle that tells its function.  Next, students will be asked, “What body systems are used while a person is running?”  To begin the lesson, students will run in place for 1 minute in the classroom.  Then, with their group, students will brainstorm a list of each of the body systems used while running and how each body system played a part.  After brainstorming, students will write a 1 paragraph response to differentiated prompt. To explore the topic, I will then show students a video about an Olympic Track Star that goes through how his body systems work together to allow him to perform.  At the conclusion of the lesson, we will have a brief class discussion, going back to our original question.  Student paragraphs will be graded so that I can evaluate learning.

This lesson was created with The Five E’s Planning Strategy, which is not something that is new to me.  I have always tried to use these strategies in my lesson creation.  I have found that breaking down instruction into parts similar to the Five E’s or Blooms Taxonomy has benefited my students in ensuring that they not only learn but can also use the knowledge gained in the lesson.   This is usually easy for me because I have class structure that starts with a warm up (my activating or engaging strategy) and follows with instruction, application, and finally a wrap up discussion where students can express their thoughts on what they learned.  This helps not only the students but also me as a teacher because I can gauge their progress quickly and adjust future lessons when necessary.

I plan to implement this lesson this week in my classroom.  We have just finished learning each of the functions of the body systems, so this will fit into expanding on that knowledge by examining how the systems work together to allow movement.  I have a very active and kinesthetic group of students this year, and I think that they will be very excited about this lesson in that they will get to run!  Space may be an obstacle that I encounter, but I plan to move desks to make room for students to move around.  I understand that other teachers may encounter practical issues with having their students run in the classroom.  For example, the lesson may need to be altered or differentiated for students with disabilities.  However, I know that my students this year are always eager to participate in hands on kinesthetic activities and are very engaged during such lessons.  Just getting out of their seats seems to be a treat for them!

Welcome to my blog!/ About Me

I LOVE teaching science.  As a student myself, science was always my favorite
subject.  It relates so much to everyday life.

I am originally from Baton Rouge, LA (GEAUX Tigers!).  My family moved to
Georgia when I was in elementary school and we've been here ever since. I
went to college at Kennesaw State University where I got a B.S. in Biology. 
I then went to North Georgia College and State Univ. where I received my
teaching certification in High School and Middle School Science and Math. I
am currently working on my Master's Degree at Walden University.  I
am married and have two cats. I love to read, travel, go hiking, and play
games. This year is my 3rd year at Trickum Middle School and 3rd year teaching.