Science Education Idea Exchange

 One of my students taught me about this gem to get students racing to clean the room: Magic Scrap. To start, pick a special piece of trash that will win the prize. When the teacher yells "magic scrap", the students scramble to be the one to find the chosen piece of trash. I wait until the room is spotless before announcing the winner. I kept a bin of goodies on hand to pass out, like pencils, erasers, mints, etc.

 I almost completely forgot, but here it is! I am having a sale on all items in my store !

 I have used this strategy for notebooking for years after it was introduced to me. Students divide their page into three different-sized sections. (See below for the labels and relative sizes.) I have the students complete the summary at the very end of their notes. They write 3-4 sentences highlighting the big ideas.

 I have heard many times over that students have better recall of notes they write when they are handwritten. I was looking at Twitter this afternoon and saw a person sharing her students' sketchnotes and it caught my attention. What is it? Basically, it is a combination of text and drawings to summarize learning. The Tweets mentioned earlier had the students using a comic book template to write about the Milky Way Galaxy. Why does it matter? It has students synthesize information in a meaningful way to them. And, by creating visuals along with text, important information is easily highlighted. (I'm sure drawing it out helps commit it to memory as well.)

 In science, there are so many opportunities to collaborate! I always tried to encourage my students to form pairs based on interests rather than previous friendships. Who knows who you might be missing out on? Here are some questions you could pose to your students to have them form new pairs relatively quickly: Candy Corn: Yes or No? Zombie or Vampire? Pirate or Ninja? Beaches or Mountains? Ice skating or Building a snowman? Listening to music or Reading a book? England or France? How many languages do you know? Video games or Computer games? Black licorice: Yes or No? Are hot dogs sandwiches: Yes or No? Superpower: Flying or Speed? Before they begin their work, they could have a chance to explain their answer to their partner. It would be a great way to break the ice. ***UPDATE: I made this into a freebie you can get here! ***

 I read this article  from Edutopia on using advertisements to teach scientific literacy. Why not? We are constantly bombarded by messages and do not stop often enough to examine what it means. For example, you could spend time on the philosophy of science and discussing what are acceptable rates for certain symptoms from a drug? When do the risks outweigh the benefits? What goes into getting a drug approved for the masses? I can't help but think of how timely this science is with concerns over vaccine safety.

I am a huge fan of project-based learning! As a result, I create lots of rubrics. Sometimes I write them myself and other times, I like to find premade ones to help me clarify the assessment piece. A co-worker in Colorado introduced me to Rubistar  years back. It's free and pretty user-friendly. They have several premade categories and criteria, but you can alter them to fit your needs. The website is old, but don't let that throw you off.

 I love to create breakout rooms for my students (as you may have noticed from my Teachers Pay Teachers page). To create your own: To get me started, I have used the template from Breakout.edu . I just discovered they have many more resources. To find pre-created resources: Search Facebook for groups- I belong to a science group that is no longer active, but you can still find resources for free Breakout.edu- requires paid membership after 14 days Teachers Pay Teachers Others? Share in the comments below

 I am currently working on writing lesson plans for MS-LS2-4. I decided to offer a lab I created for the lesson plans as a stand-alone. You can find it here !

After months of work, I finally completed another lesson plan bundle with the idea of project-based learning and engineering in mind.  Check it out !

I recently completed a class on Learner's Edge . The class was over the STEM Shift. The price was right and the class flexible. I earned college credit for $200 less than other options I found online. I highly recommend it if you need extra CEUs, like I did. Other and free online resources I have found are through: EdPuzzle (under "Resources") Learning for Justice What tools do you use to earn CEUs?

 I watched and was inspired the other day by The Creative Brain  on Netflix. There were so many tidbits on how to innovate and how all people can be creators. As a science teacher, I have been trying to encourage my students to create new inventions. Some takeaways I have to share with you are: 1. Create journals full of pictures and lists of things you come across every day. This could be done in a classroom between students to inspire one another or lists of phenomena. 2. Create a hybrid. Why not mesh two existing designs together to see what happens? 3. Make a twist.  We mistakenly think that things have to be brand new to be inventive. Take an existing invention and add a slight twist to it.

I know that my students always found making graphs daunting, so I created a free cheat sheet that can be downloaded at my store. It includes basic descriptions of how graphs are set up and explanations of the use of four common graphs. I would love to hear your thoughts on this resource so I can improve it. 😊  

 I have added a new lesson plan (a few months ago). The lesson plan bundle is over ecology and includes a long-term project over composting. Sorry I have been absent. I had an emergency hospital stay and have been trying to get things back in order. Amazing how life can change so quickly, isn't it? In order to celebrate my return and all of the hard things you do, I am also throwing a sale on my Teachers Pay Teachers for 20% of all of my items from October 8th to October 11th.

I am joining Teachers Pay Teachers to have a sale next week! All items in my store will be discounted.  

 In case you didn't want the full lesson plan bundle, you can buy just the simulations! I've included the mutualism, predator/prey, and competition simulations.  You can find it here !

 I am excited to announce that I have completed the second objective in ecology! This includes three different simulations to help students identify patterns in mutualism, predator/prey, and competition. It's available in my  store .

 Howdy strangers! Life has definitely been busy, so I have been missing in action. I'm proud to announce that I have finished my lesson plans for middle school life science 2-1. I wrote a simulation for looking at wolf and deer populations in different scenarios. It was time-consuming but well worth it. You can find the simulation alone or the f ull lesson plans on my Teachers Pay Teachers.