These blogs are directly concerning my Science classes. These could be class news, announcements, or news for parents.
Mar 03
Last week our 8th grade Bacteria Labs went all wrong. Student teams went all around the school swabbing different places to see where they would find the most bacteria. What happened was something I didn’t expect, not one single petri dish showed any growth. No bacteria, no mold, nothing. We discussed possible sources of error …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/03/03/lab-saved/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/02/10/we-are-the-change-we-need/
Jan 28
Back in mid-November I wrote about how my students were using technology as tool in reference to the addition of iPads into my classroom. I was able to purchase 12 iPads with funds from Learn & Serve America. My 6th graders have been studying the water quality of our neighborhood creek, Chimacum Creek, for over …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/01/28/6th-grade-water-quality/
Jan 22
My Science PLC has a few concepts that we have been reviewing with our students in grades 6 – 12 for the past few years. One of those concepts was brought to us by one of our high school teachers because she noticed that her students were having difficulty with conceiving of air as having …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/01/22/sometimes-science-lessons-just-go-wrong/
Dec 18
It’s nice to celebrate the small successes, it keeps us sane. 🙂 In my post about microorganisms I shared some of, what I thought, were wonderful critters. A bunch of students in both of my 8th grade classes were right there with me, finding great critters, identifying them and drawing them. Maybe it was because …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/12/18/small-successes/
Dec 12
This year in 8th grade Life Science we started a unit on diversity of life by learning what it means to be considered a living thing. One criterion for organisms to be considered living that students came up with was made of cells. So we’ve been looking for microorganisms. We collected samples of water from …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/12/12/finding-microorganisms/
Nov 29
Short answer, yes. There is a time and a place for everything. And even with inquiry there is a time and place for structure. I think learning a structure like the one in this blog is great for elementary teachers who teach Science. Is this the only way? No. Should you do this all the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/29/can-inquiry-be-structured/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/14/technology-as-a-tool/
Nov 09
So while my 8th graders were researching the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill a few teams found youtube videos showing how hay could be used to soak up the oil. Yeah, they saw it with own eyes on the video. That was somewhat convincing but they were still curious. Could hay really soak up oil …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/09/quick-and-dirty-inquiry/
Oct 10
My 6th graders are researching water pollution as part of our water quality project. I created a Google Doc for each team in each class for them to answer their questions and take notes. Each student in each team would type his or her notes into the Google Doc and once teams are ready the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/10/10/office2-hd-and-google-docs/
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