Category: Science

These are blogs about Science or about the Science we do in my classes.

Aligning a Kit to the NGSS

This post was originally published at the CORELaborate blog here. Aligning a Kit (or any Science Activity) to NGSS I have the STC/MS Kit, Energy, Machines, and Motion (EMM). I use that kit with my 6th grade students for their physical science experience. The first unit of the kit is the Energy unit. The NGSS …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/12/22/aligning-a-kit-to-the-ngss/

WA STEM Summit 2016 #waSTEMsummit

Had a great day at the 2016 WA STEM Summit in Redmond, WA, at the Microsoft Conference Center! I put together my Tweets from the day along with a small assortment of the many Tweets that flowed! We started the day with an amazing breakfast and some great speakers (Tweets from the morning are at …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/30/wa-stem-summit-2016-wastemsummit/

Inquiry Boards Bottle Flipping Lab Write-Up

This post was originally written on the CORELaborate blog here. Last week my 6th graders used Inquiry Boards to design and conduct experiments flipping water bottles. I took photos of a few of their lab write-ups and graphs to show the great work they did. Using Inquiry Boards makes the lab write-up process much easier …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/28/inquiry-boards-bottle-flipping-lab-write-up/

Hindsight is easy, I Need Foresight!

This post was originally published at the CORELaborate Blog here! Isn’t it fun to find out your plan didn’t work AFTER students start turning in work? I see my error NOW and I even have an idea for how to fix it but I won’t know how well the fix works until next time students …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/27/hindsight-is-easy-i-need-foresight/

Bottle Flipping Lab

This post was originally published on the CORELaborate WA blog here. NGSS says start with a phenomenon to hook kids, get them interested and get them thinking and asking questions. After having to ask kids every day to stop flipping their bottles in class so we wouldn’t have to hear that obnoxious bottle falling sound, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/22/bottle-flipping-lab/

NGSS & The Scientific Method

This post was originally published on the CORELaborate WA blog here. Is the Scientific Method dead? Does the NGSS have guidelines for students as experimental designers? Before NGSS, WA State’s revised 2009 Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALR) number 2 was the Inquiry standard for questioning and investigating. That provide a framework for how Science teachers …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/21/ngss-the-scientific-method/

Response to the Biggest Challenge Science Teachers Face

Just out on Larry Ferlazzo’s EdWeek Blog, Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo, is the response to the question about the biggest challenge facing Science Teachers. Last week I shared a link to Larry’s BAM Radio show where I got to share my thoughts on the topic and here’s a link to the follow-up EdWeek blog …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/14/response-to-the-biggest-challenge-science-teachers-face/

Biggest Challenges Facing Science Teachers

I was so happy and honored to be asked by Larry Ferlazzo (check out Larry’s blog if you don’t read it already) to be a panelist on his BAM! Radio Network show, Classroom Q&A! We tackled the topic of solutions to the biggest challenges facing Science Teachers. It was so cool! I’ve embedded it above …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/04/biggest-challenges-facing-science-teachers/

What is STEM?

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. This has worried teachers of the arts and the humanities because at face value it seems to exclude those disciplines. I don’t know it was meant to at first since the STEM fields were competing against the others at a time when our country wanted …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/10/18/what-is-stem-2/

CER Rubric

Originally posted on CORElaborate here (re-posted here in its entirety with the author’s – me – permission). I don’t use rubrics very often and when it comes time to have students self-assess I prefer proficiency scales. When I last wrote about using CER, Claims – Evidence – Reasoning, for having students write experiment conclusions, I …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/10/17/cer-rubric/

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