These are blogs about Science or about the Science we do in my classes.
Nov 19
The Sally Ride EarthKAM website is a great website with amazing activities incorporating space science and the International Space Station (ISS)! Sally Ride was the first American woman in space and she has left a fabulous legacy with this NASA EarthKAM project. EarthKAM, which stands for Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, allows students …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/11/19/students-requesting-photos-of-earth-from-the-iss/
Jun 25
After COVID it was nice to start the school year like almost normal. Kids were in full classes of 24 or 25 giving us 75 students (14 5th graders and 61 6th graders) in three classes and they were coming to school all day, every day. I was teaching only Science, another teacher taught ELA …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/06/25/2022-2023-school-year-exhausting-confusing-rewarding/
Jun 25
The end of the year was fast approaching and it was time for me to help my kids conclude our Environmental Stewardship Project. I have been doing this project in one form or another since 1997 when I started working at my current school and saw that our town creek ran right by the campus, …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/06/25/final-project-ai-did-help/
Nov 28
Minecraft Education Edition has some amazing Hour of Code worlds that are fun to play to have students learn a little bit of coding. This year’s new addition to the collection is the Escape Estate and it looks great. But what if you want something more in-depth? If you are looking for more coding with …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/11/28/coding-in-minecraft/
Nov 27
Another great activity I started this year with only requires beakers, crayons, water, and salt! Spoons help, too. If you Google Floating Crayons you’ll find more ideas, resources, and even YouTube videos. For this activity, Crayola crayons are the best. I don’t normally endorse products but cheaper crayon brands float in fresh water and that …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/11/27/do-crayons-float/
Nov 26
In 2004 I was part of the North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership (NCOSP). Of all the amazing activities we did in the years that I participated in NCOSP there is one activity that I am still doing with students 18 years later. The activity, also known as inference cubes, is a fantastic way to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/11/26/observation-or-inference/
Nov 22
We always start school with students on the day after Labor Day so this year our first day with students was Tuesday, September, 6. I wanted to start with a bang on the first day so I decided to have students experiment with making slime! It was a hit! Day 1 Students started by all …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/11/22/great-day-1-activity/
Aug 05
I am honored to have been chosen as the 2022 award recipient for the Northwest, Region 10, of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators or PIAEE! The award winners were mentioned on the EPA’s websites and social media on July 1 and the awards ceremony happened in Washington DC on …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/08/05/the-epas-presidential-award-for-environmental-educators/
Aug 01
I wrote about struggles I’ve always had with reading before, but I’ve never really reflected on my struggles with Math. Reading is more prevalent so I face my struggles on a daily basis. My struggles with Math are not as obvious, especially because the types of Math I use daily are Maths I can do …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/08/01/best-math-combo-ever/
May 02
This year, with students sitting closer together and able to work cooperatively in small teams, our robotics unit was able to happen again! Having 5th graders mixed in with our 6th graders allowed me to change up our usual robotics unit with one that focused on space science. Using NASA’s Artemis mission to go back …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/05/02/lunar-missions-and-robotics/
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I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
