Effecting Change at the School and District Levels

Even though I have only taught science education for one year in my school district, I have been a driving force behind creating a STEM junior high at our school. At monthly staff meetings, anytime the topic of STEM came up, the Principal and Staff members referred their questions to me.

I have been an active member of the science committee for my school. The science chair often told me that my love for science was contagious at the meetings. I was bursting with ideas on ways to improve the science program throughout the district. I believe that in order to be productive, we have to work together as a team to build up the knowledge of our students, rather than blame the grade level before for not fully preparing the students.

We have begun to openly review the science curriculum as a whole, rather than just narrowing the focus of only knowing what standards we must teach. The high school teachers were not aware of the importance of the 1-8 achievement tests, because they just have to worry about getting their students to pass one graduation test in four years. The open communication has helped us to unite the science program across the district. I am glad to be a part of it.

Week 2- Blog: What is Our Sputnik?

In his article, “What Is Our Sputnik?”, Friedman (2010, January 17) makes some pretty bold, opinionated claims. While reading most of the article, I was thinking, “Wow! I can not believe he wrote that!” or “Great point!” or “Why isn’t anyone listening to this guy?”. I often wonder why America spends so much time and money trying to “fix” other countries while we need to be fixed ourselves, first.

I do feel strongly that the money we spend on other countries could be put to some great use in educating our youth to help build up our country to surpass China. That may at least help us become independent from them if we can at least buy back our country from them.

I was also not aware of anything that occurred in the Strait of Taiwan. It would be nice to see the news focusing on their peace and suggesting that other countries can work things out without us micromanaging everything.

Again, I feel that if we did take much of our efforts away from foreign issues and put that money into educating or own children, we could create our own Sputnik type phenomenon before we have the threat of another country beating us to the punch.


Reference

Friedman, T. L. (2010, January 17). What’s our sputnik? [Op-Ed]. The New York Times [Late Edition (East Coast)], p. WK.8.

Ask a Scientist

I have waited three weeks and still have not received a response from Ask A Scientist. I cannot remember the exact question I asked them, but it was something along the lines of, "what causes some cells to divide to create identical twins, partially divide to create Siamese twins, or not divide at all?"

Modeling Earth Science

I was so excited when I read this assignment! I found a tornado machine at a garage sale that was a student’s science fair project. With all of the horrible weather and tornadoes that we have been experiencing, my students have been asking a lot of questions about them. And the best part is that it aligns with my science standards! In order for the tornado simulator to work, I needed to purchase dry ice. I finally found and ice cream place that sells it to the public. I also needed a way to educate the students about important information on Tornadoes before I demonstrated with the model. I found the perfect website at National Geographic Society (2011). This website offers an interactive lab that also displays six different learning tools that are all centered on tornadoes. Everything the students need to learn about a tornado is all included in this site. It is wonderful! The following is the lesson that I created using the the models of an interactive National Geographic website and a tornado simulator.

I was so excited to share this lesson with my students. I used a perfect, interactive website to demonstrate all of the information about tornadoes. The website was a National Geographic site called Forces of Nature: Tornadoes (2011). This website includes six different instructional parts. The first part shows a picture of a tornado with all of the basic information stating what a tornado is. The second part zooms in on the United States in the path where most tornadoes occur. The video demonstrates the movement of air needed to cause a tornado. There is also information included describing what causes a tornado. The third part demonstrates the characteristics of a tornado. After reading the informative information provided, the students may choose the level of tornado they would like to watch on the Fujita Scale, ranging from an F0 to and F5. Each scale not only demonstrates the destruction, it also states the type of damage that type of cell will create. The fourth section describes the damage that a real tornado will cause. It included details along with real videos of tornadoes and picture of their amazing destruction. The fifth part discusses how tornadoes are forecasted and also includes pictures of stations and moving satellite images of a tornado cell’s satellite imagery. The sixth and final section allows the students to create a tornado by selecting the conditions that create a tornado. After the students select the perfect conditions to create a tornado, they watch their tornado of varying intensity pass through a farm. The students can assess the damage and size of the tornado cell to determine what level the tornado was. We did this section as a class so many times that the students knew the formula by heart. Air mass one needs cold, dry air. Air mass two needs warm, moist air. The barometric pressure must quickly fall. And variable wind speeds are required.

When I showed this lesson on the Smart Board, all of the students payed close attention, especially during the part where they got to create a tornado. We kept creating the formula repeatedly until the students got to see each type of tornado. This took a while because it repeated many types before it made its way through each kind.

After the students understood all of the much needed background knowledge surrounding tornadoes. They anxiously jumped up to watch the tornado simulator model. Of course they all wanted to put the dry ice in the container and pouted when I told them they were not allowed to handle the dry ice. Once I placed the dry ice in the container, they had to figure out how to produce the tornado, based on the information they just learned. They turned the fan on and nothing happened. They realized they had to activate the dry ice by countering it with warm water. They went to get warm water to pour on the ice. It started to fog up, but it was not creating a tornado. They closed of the sides of the simulator to keep the air from coming in. This made it worse. When they let go, a tornado started to form. They just had to be a little patient for all of the ingredients to react to each other perfectly. They were so excited when the tornado started to form. They asked if they could touch the tornado cloud and of course I said yes, as long as they did not touch the dry ice or water pan.

All of the students were surrounding the model tornado in my classroom. Other students passing by in the hallway got curious and came in to see what all of the commotion was about. They were excited to watch as well. My Principal was walking by my room and also came in to see what was going on. He was amazed, too. He looked at a student and asked why this tornado was occurring and the student just looked at me! This was not even one of my students! Just a passer-by from the hallway. I quickly informed the Principal that he was not one of my students who just received the lesson. He asked who was in that class and students raised their hands. He looked at one boy and asked, "Why is this occurring?" to which the student perfectly stated, “Cold, dry air from air mass one, mixes with warm, moist air from air mass two. The barometric pressure falls and the winds show variable speeds. Then a tornado is likely to occur.” I was so proud of him! This showed my principal that they students were not only partaking in a fun activity, but also completely knew and understood all of the weather related factor necessary to create this phenomenon! He ran over to the Board Office and brought them all over to watch the Tornado simulator and students in action! I could not believe how powerful the use of a model was in my classroom!

Unfortunately, dry ice that I purchased did not last very long in my hot classroom so my later periods did not get to experience the lesson and were completely bummed about it. So I found another supplier of dry ice and bought more to perform the activity again the next day. This dry ice came in huge blocks of ice and created a much bigger and more amazing tornado than the day before. Unfortunately, I did not think to take pictures that day when the model tornado was really remarkable.

This was an amazing lesson and completely impressed not only my students, but also my Administrators all of the way up to the Superintendent! The use of good, effective models has a great affect on students learning! After the lesson was over, the students all raised their hands to ask if they could practice creating a tornado on the Smart Board using the Tornado website! They rushed up to participate and play with the website until the bell rang! I could not believe they wanted to keep learning and practicing!

In closing, this was a wonderful experience and I cannot wait to do it again next year. I am going to rely on more models to demonstrate events in front of the class more often. I hope I get lucky enough to find another old science fair projects at a garage sales this summer!

Natural Disasters

While we do seem have an unusual year with an amplified number of natural disasters occurring, I wonder if it is just a cycle that the Earth goes through every once in a while. Because we have such a wide range of technology at our fingertips every moment, we are able to view pictures and stories of the natural disasters more easily, so it may seem worse than before.

In an effort to help the victims, especially of Joplin, Missouri, I would like to have my students collect funds to send to the American Red Cross. News Anchor Brian Williams said that money to the Red Cross is the best thing for them right now because they have no place to store, wash or sort clothes and blankets. It is also much harder to ship and sort the materials. They are able to use the money more effectively right away.

Once we have sent money to the American Red Cross, I would like the students to investigate what items the American Cross buys to help the victims so that they can see how they directly helped.

In closing, we have also been hit by this raging storms of tornadoes as we are right behind Missouri. My students have a lot of questions and concerns about tornadoes right now. I would also like to take this time to inform our community of how to prepare for a tornado by practicing evacuation plans and preparing emergency kits.

Web 2.0 Tools

The following are the Web 2.0 tools that I have been practicing with my students this year. It is always scary when I allow the students to navigate a tool that I don’t have all of the answers to. However, I feel that the students had a blast exploring the ins and outs of each tool and showing me how to properly use it. They loved being the “teacher”. The point is, do not feel like you have to know everything in order to present it. Do not be afraid of technology. It is wonderful. Let your students help you for a change!

Prezi-
After my students and I navigated everything we could think of about Prezi, they all created a final “canvas” to present their class projects. Prezi is like Power Point, only fresher. All of the information is on one large canvas that pans from one topic to the next in whatever order you create. It looks amazing! My students easily added pictures, video, and sounds to their Prezis. Many students even used Prezi to create personal presentations on topics like pets, hobbies, and friends! They did this completely on their own because they enjoyed creating Prezi so much! I love it!

ToonDoo-
My students and I really enjoyed playing with ToonDoo. The students really got into it! They could create their own cartoon using any of the tools provided. This took much creativity; however, it is not adequate enough to fulfill any scientific presentation needs.

Glogster-
The students also enjoyed Glogster. This tool allows the students to create a virtual poster, rather than using glue, scissors, and paper. Many students enjoyed decorating their science portfolios using Glogster. They especially loved the tool that allowed them to tap into the school’s laptop webcams. They were able to take pictures of each other this way and continued to make Glogster posters that included their friends for other classes as well. This is a great tool; however, it would only be best to present a small amount of information with not a lot of descriptive details. It also does not allow you to implement videos, which makes most presentations more effective.

Mixbook-
I was very excited about my students creating their presentations using mixbook; however, the district blocked this website and would not allow access through the web filter. This tool would have been nice because it is like creating a photobook with written descriptions. When digitally viewing the book online, the students cold just flip the page (like a real book) to input and view more information. It was free to sign up for mixbook and create a photobook, but the students/parents did have the option to purchase the book if they wanted to.

WikiSpaces-
I had many issues with the wikispace website. My school also blocked this site. I thought this would be a great way to implement findings or research that my students had about their labs; however, there were just too many barriers for this site to be successful for my needs.

Topics and Tools

21st-Century Learning Tools

I am blessed to teach in a school district that believes in having a Smart Board or Interactive White Board in every classroom. They are powerful tools that cater minimally to the visual, kinesthetic, and auditory learners. They are also a huge component to 21st-century learning because most schools are striving to gain this innovative tool to advance their students’ learning. The most powerful and innovative online resource that I found during my research was the Smart Technologies (2010) website located at http://www.exchange.smarttech.com/index.html#tab=0. This website contained a vast number of interactive Smart Board lessons that already exist on the internet. The layout of the site was also very user friendly. There were three categories for me to enter information on. The first was “search for” where I typed “energy”; the second was a pull down bar marked “subject” and the third was another pull down bar marked “grade”. Within the “grade” menu, I could check multiple grade levels, which I found helpful, too since I wanted to explore material for grades four through nine. Once I completed the selections, I had many Smart Board lessons to choose from that were all centered on Energy.

If you have a SmartBoard in your room, this site locates many different lessons that cater to many different learning intelligences. For some slides, the students could come up to the board and tap or slide an answer to the proper place. Some slides allowed the students to match pictures to proper word or categories. Some slides included hyperlinks to short videos about the topic, like energy. Some slides included quick games and activities to perform as a class.

One lesson focused on energy and allowed the student to view a picture or setting and the students must place an object in the place where is has the most potential and kinetic energy. I must admit I had fun exploring this activity and testing my current knowledge. There were also many pictures that the students could drag to the proper form of energy. To explore transfers of energy, the students have to drag the proper words to the blanks within the sentences.

Another lesson that I enjoyed focused on energy sources and potential and kinetic energy. This lesson also offered many pictures and word tricks, allowing students to erase pictures to reveal key words and categorize different sources of energy.

I had so much fun exploring these sites and can’t wait to implement them into my energy lesson next week. This tool will provide a thrilling twist to a dreary lecture on energy. My students will also be excited to actively participate in my lecture. These Smart Board tools will prepare my students to be 21st-century scientifically literate citizens because they will learn and understand innovative ways to present and understand scientific material. Today’s children are heavily influenced by things that entertain them. If they understand that pictures and actions may create a better understanding of scientific concepts, then they will be able to search tools that provide an interactive understanding of the knowledge they are seeking.