Stimulating Science Simulations

5.L.1.1  Explain why some organisms are capable of surviving as a single cell while others require many cells that are specialized to survive.  What will you find in some pond water?  Pond critters of course. We had already completed an initial lesson in the classroom.  I had scooped a bucket of pond water from my neighborhood and we examined the unicellular and multicellular life of the pond. In fact, this lesson was taught almost two months ago but then we had some signs of spring.  The rains came and with it, outdoor recess became a festival of science!  My kiddos found a puddle and were completely enthralled with the life of a puddle.  They begged me to bring out the microscopes and slides for RECESS!! Of course, being the teacher who wants to make the kids happy, I gave them exactly what they wanted.  Combined with a little mobile technology and we were identifying the organisms in the puddle in no time.  We found that one of the ...

One of my favorite classroom tools are the data probes from Vernier Technologies.  During our 5th grade unit study of motion, we used the Go! Motion sensor to detect student motion including speed and velocity. You can see the level of concentration in my students' faces as they collected their data using laptops and probes.  In addition to collecting the data, students developed an understanding of how speed can be represented on a line graph.     I highly recommend the use of data probes such as these.  Grant sources such as DonorsChoose and Bright Ideas are great places to secure funding. After completing this investigation, we analyzed various line graphs representing speed. Check out our notebook entries.

of Steve Spangler's Amazing and Captivating Science ideas and workshops.  He has a true knack for engaging learners.  When I heard he was performing (I mean presenting) a workshop in Greensboro, NC, of course I signed up.  As usual, it was time well spent re-energizing and re-building my science repertoire. Steve shared a cool new toy (I mean chemicals for studying properties of matter) called Vampire Slime.  It isn't your ordinary slime.  This slime appears to be a dark green color until you shine a light on it and then it turns red, but that's not all.  As soon as I got mine home, my kids wanted to check it out. One of the first things they asked was if it was red in a mirror. We all know that "vampires" can't see their reflection in the mirror right? So if this is vampire slime, we shouldn't see the red, should we? I shared the idea with Steve and he thought the results were just as interesting as my kids did.  In fact, he was so intrigued by ...

Where to begin?  This has been an amazing trip!  My husbands sister and her family live in North Pole, Alaska.  We flew out here on July 6th and planned to stay for one week.  On the way to their house from the airport, we saw a moose crossing the road. They are HUGE! One of the first places we visited was the Alaskan Pipeline. The first three days we had beautiful weather and spent lots of time exploring the great outdoors of the Alaskan Interior.  They have two Rzrs (4 wheel ATVs) that were tons of fun for riding on the trails and playing in the big mud puddles. On one of our rides, we saw moose tracks and we even ran into some firefighters who were getting ready to make a cut line. Of course, I went into teacher mode and conducted an impromptu mini interview on the spot. Day three took a turn for the worse when our oldest son flipped a Rzr on its' side, resulting in a broken humerus and dislocated elbow. Two hours in surgery, two plates, and 8 scr...

Congratulations to all 13 students from our Science Olympiad team.  I am so proud of their hard work and efforts.  Today culminated months of preparation for competition in 18 different events. In case you are unfamiliar with elementary science olympiad, it is an all day function split into 3 time periods.  During each time period, student pairs compete in 6 different events. Our students represented the school very well.  Many parents opted to stay throughout the day and cheer the teams on during the spectator events. We felt really good about our participation.  As the coach, I had set forth 3 expectations for the day: 1. Have fun! 2. Learn something new. 3. Pay attention to each of your events so that you can tell me what would be helpful for preparing students in the future.

It has rained every Friday in the past 3 weeks.  Finally, we got through a Friday morning without rain and my 3rd grade classes were able to go out to the garden.  We worked for about 80 minutes and cleared out most of the clover that was growing.  We had a terrible time clearing out runners from Bermuda grass last year but apparently we did a good job of it since there was very little to be found growing this year. Besides getting the garden mostly weed free, tons of learning took place.  The 3rd graders did a great job working carefully with their tools and clearing their patch of the garden.  They worked to spread the different types of soil that they found so there would be a healthy combination.  One area seemed to have more clay than the rest, so they worked to spread that around.

I've spent a day and a half working with the North Carolina team and teams from 40 states along with Washington, DC on the charge to build capacity for state science education.  As such, we are looking closely at the Framework for Science  and the Next Generation of Science Standards .

I'm a firm believer in the concept "don't reinvent the wheel".   blog post that compares/contrasts the Common Core Standards and NC Essential Standards. Thomas Feller, Jr. wrote a nice In a follow up post, he shares a common core scavenger hunt  .

Traditionally, I have my 3rd grade students draw pictures of the moon for an entire month.  We usually do this project after learning about the phases of the moon.  This year I had a thought.