Science Education Idea Exchange

This was sent to me via Twitter and it's fantastic, so thanks to Carol! This is a website that runs almost 24 hours showing a family of bald eagles in Australia. So many learning opportunities! It could easily become a part of a class routine at any age level. So many students are unexposed to wildlife and know even less about animal development. Go to: http://www.zaplive.tv/web/hwf-sidney2?streamId=hwf-sidney2

PowerPoints can be a fun way to review materials with students. This website provides amazing templates made by Mr. Damon. It offers Who Wants to be a Millionaire? , Hillsborough Squares , and Jeopardy to name a few. All of these are ready to go and easy to modify for free.

I have found videos related to the material that are non-traditional get my students' attention. For example, this video is part of a series that can be found on YouTube about survival of the fittest and the importance of drinking milk. It was a fun way to start class and review the terminology in the evolution unit like "fitness" and "natural selection". At a MNSTA conference I went to last month, I learned how to download websites. All you need to do is type the phrase "kick" in the address bar before " youtube .com" and it will bring you to another site to download it for free. It's nice to keep out the advertisements and for schools that have blocked YouTube on the Internet .

EvoDots is a program that is offered in a variety of formats so as to work with Macs and PC's. It allows students to go through and and see how a population changes over time. It starts with dots of various colors that you can alter speed, size, or visibility. It's simple but free, cheap and quick in demonstrating evolution.