All Good Things Must Come To An End!!!

If I'm being honest, I was horrified of taking this class with Dr. Smirnova.  I had heard from many other students that it was a crazy amount of work and time.  That she expected so much from her students and could keep piling the work on.  Going into this class I did not know if I would make it out alive and I was not just taking one of her course I was taking two.  I spent the first class doubting if I had made the right choice in careers and if I had the skills to complete this class.  In the beginning of the semester I constructed some goals for myself regarding this course.


Now that the semester is over, I am so glad I took this course.  Not only is Dr. Smirnova a book of great resources,  she also will give you all the support you need.  No matter the time of day or the amount of question, she always has an answer for you.  At the end of this class, I feel like I am a stronger teacher.  I understand the techniques need to teach science.  I know that teachers are not perfect but, they strive to be.  I have learned how to incorporate all two lesson styles into a unit plan, how to use great internet tools into lessons, and how google docs can be a great asset to your classroom.  I will use all the tools and strategies that Dr. Smirnova has taught throughout this semesters .

It is surprising, but I am going to miss this class.  As a class we all worked together, had fun, and found our way through this class.  Moving forward from this semester, I will take all the tools I have used and bring them into a classroom.

As the semester comes to a close I am sad to leave this class and will always be grateful to Dr. Smirnova's amazing teaching.

Thank you for everything Dr. Smirnova!!

How to Make Science Creative

 Why should we make science creative?  Science is a topic that spans so many different areas from microbiology to the unknown of space.  As teachers we need to create creative science activities to help students expand their understanding of science which will expand their understanding of life as they know it.  In the article Think Creatively about Science the many concept is to teach students science in a creative and interesting way.  To develop creative scientists the students need to develop flexibility in making choices and problem solving.  Creative scientists can find problems and solutions that others miss.  When students are exposed to experiences at a young age they are able to develop problem solving skills earlier.  As I read this article it concerns me with how we teach our students in schools today.  In schools we are trying to force students to think within a box.  We do not allow the students to explore their world, we just want them to read and retain the information.  Most students can not learn like this.  They need to experience the information in their own way, to internalize it in the way that is most interesting to them.  Over the past couple of years, our school have been taking this experience away from students.  In this article it says a educator must create an environment that encourages students to discovery on their own.  An educator must invite students to ask questions and have areas where students can investigate these questions.  When students are allowed to question, investigate, and discovery information they are learning the skills of problem solving which can be used through out their schooling and life, not just in science. 

As a teacher of preschool I believe in teaching through play and discover.  Student learn through the use of games, puzzles, imaginative play, role playing. sensory activities, songs, and finger plays.  By allowing students explore and discover information in their own way they tend to internalize the information.  When a student is learning through exploration and discovery they do not realize they are learning.  For students with academic difficulties, this make learning more tolerable because they do not realize they are learning.  I truly hope as I get into the mainstream schools I can continue using exploration and discovery to help my students learn. I want to teach the students to love to learn and find their own path through learning.

Can We Teach The Change?

As teachers we have the opportunity to teach students to change the world.  Students need to learn that if they want, if they put their mind to it they can change the world.  In class today we discussed how we as teachers can teach students how to relate, understand, and help the topic of global warming and climate change.  As teachers we need to give our students the tools and information to help them understand what global warming and climate change is.  That this problem did not happen over night and I will only get worse if we as people of the Earth do not change our ways.  Once the students understand how global warming and climate change they then can start thinking of how the topic relates to them.  If students do not think that global warming and climate change relates to their life they will not care as much.  Once you can teach the students how global warming and climate change relates to their life they can start thinking up ways to help.  You never know inside which students mind will come up with the solution to this our any problem.  By giving students the freedom to think on their own and make a different.

As a class we came up with came up with a joint statement about the importance of global warming and climate change.  After watching the movie Home by Yann Arthus-Bertand we all wrote statements  regarding our effect on the Earth.  Then, we came together and created a statement that reflected our thoughts and ideals.  We then added our joint statement to change.org.

 

Here is our joint statement:

Joint Statement

We are science methods students from Mount Saint Mary College. During this semester we have studied climate change and its impact on our planet. The finale to our course included watching Home, a documentary directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand and narrated by Glenn Close. The documentary was eye opening and shocking in regards to the negative impact that humans have had on our planet on a daily basis. Humanity is threatening the ecological balance of our planet. Our resources will not last forever, especially if we continue to abuse them with toxic pesticides, excessive mining, water shortages, deforestation, extinction, global warming, droughts, and wildfires. Many species have become extinct and continue to become scarce.  Everyday, thousands of people are dying because they are drinking polluted water. It is up to us to keep clean the very resource we need to survive. As we deplete our nonrenewable resources, we need to lean on natural resources such as the sun.  We need to look to solar power to become our primary resource for energy. When we allow chemicals to be released into our waters, soil, and atmosphere we put a strain on our natural resources.  One of the major reactions from releasing chemicals into our atmosphere is the depletion of our Earth’s ozone.  As we continue to release these chemicals into our environment we put everything on the beautiful Earth in harm's way.  Cities like Dubai embody the result of our power and are critical need for natural resources, yet flies in the face of our home’s dire need for support and sustainability.   We can make a difference but we need to reshape our focus. It has been said that progress is fulfilled in volume. Numbers speak louder when Governments are beginning to prioritize the need for renewable  energy. Electricity plants are exploring geothermal energy. The introduction of Wind farms produce 20%  energy.  Intelligence in engineering will help lead our society and joining nations on a mission to preserve our earth rather than exhaust her resources.

As future teachers, we hope to impart this important information onto our students and stress the importance of protecting our home.

Action speaks louder than words. As future educators, it is our job to inform the youth about the harm we have created.

1. We will develop awareness of the state of the environment, by creating organizations for students to join, learn, and promote Earth friendly mentalities.
2. We will persuade administrators to incorporate environmental change into science curricula for all grade levels.
3. We will maintain the movement of educating our students to continue to bring the positive change to our environment and maintain the balance of our home.

    

What We Don't Know We Can Find In The News

Using the news and current events are a great way to teach science information that is relevant to today.  For Science-in-the-News I used the website Newsela to gather my articles for astronomy.  In Newsela, you can search by grade level, topic, main idea, or vocabulary.  When I was searching for articles I looked for topics that sparked an interest for me.  All the articles were on the topic of Astronomy.  By finding articles that were interesting to me I had more of an interest of reading the articles in depth and not just glance over them.  After gathering ten articles, I created a Glogster with a short summary and link to each articles.  Glogster is an interactive custom poster.  This is my Glogster.  By using the articles we then created a TagCrowd.  TagCrowd is a webpage that creates a clip art based off of the most common words found in all the articles. TagCrowd allows you to enter the text of a articles and it will pull out the most common words, with the most common words are the biggest and boldest.  This is what TagCrowd created:

 Using these websites was very exciting and interesting.  They are a great way to engage students in learning both science topics and technology.  Some of the other sites we have used for the world clouds are Wordle and Tagul.

From this information we then compiled a time line for the topic of astronomy.  My group used a very interactive website called Tiki-Toki. We started our timeline with Thales 624 B.C., Aristarchus 310 B.C., Galileo 1564, Stephen Hawking 1942, NASA 1958, Kepler Mission 2009, Pluto 2009, Deep Space 2020, and Living on Mars 2030.  As a teacher you could use this timeline in many different ways.  It can be used to teach students the chronological order of a topic, it can also be an interesting way of introducing your lessons.

Our groups Astronomy Timeline

Out Of This World

 
This project was a class assignment.  Each student was assigned a solar system topic and was to research it.  Each student would create slides using the research information they had found.  Then each student would present their topic to the class. This was an engaging way to review the solar system.



My topic was Pluto.  I named my slides Once I was a Planet.  Pluto was discovered in 1930.  It was once the ninth planet in the solar system and the farthest from the sun.  In 2006 scientist redefined the criteria that defines what a planet is.  Pluto did not meet all three criteria so Pluto lost its title as a planet in 2006 when it was demoted to a dwarf planet.  Pluto is smaller then the Earth's moon.  Pluto's atmosphere is mainly made up of nitrogen.  When Pluto is at the farthest point from the Sun in its rotation the atmosphere freezes and does not thaw until it moves closer to the Sun.  

What Does Climate Have To Do With Us?

What does climate have to do with us?  The climate project was for us to research climate and the effects of outside forces on the climate and its changes.  As a class we received a topic that was built around climate and climate changes.  Our topic was to define climate.  The definition of climate is the long-term prevailing pattern of temperature, precipitation and other weather variables at a given location.  The given location variables are latitude, elevation, ocean/wind current,  proximity to large bodies of water, and terrain.  There are also 4 major climates on our plant.  They are tropical, temperate, subarctic, and arctic.  Tropical is in lower latitudes equatorial air mass and has warm weather all year long.  Temperate has average yearly temperatures are not extreme. Subarctic is only found in the northern hemisphere. Arctic has cold winters and short cool summers.  When teaching students about climates you can have them research the clothing, jobs, farming, hunting, housing, and hobbies people have in different climates.

We the went into the reasons for climate change, how we can help with it, and why we need to teach about it.  Climate change is the process of climates shifting because of pollution and human activity.  Students need to be taught the reasons for climate changes on our Earth.  By teaching students how climate change works and how they can help make a difference, students can become more interested in the subject.  You never know how big a change one student can make if they are just given the opportunity to make a difference.

To Be In 7th Grade Again

As a project this semester we were given the task of designing a science fair project as a seventh grader.  We were to follow the rubric given to Mrs. Foster-Faith’s middle school students.  Mrs. Foster-Faith asked us to complete this project as if we were middle school students and then present the project at the school-wide science fair.  

    My project was called What Makes Ice Melt Faster?  I started by remembering the steps of the scientific method: identify the problem, formulate a question, construct a hypothesis, gather information, test your hypothesis, analyze and draw a conclusion, and communicate the results.  I started with the problem of wanting to know is there was any substance that could melt ice.  Then, I came up with the question what makes ice melt faster?  Based off my question I constructed the hypothesis of if you add 1 tablespoon of salt to water than the ice cubes will melt faster.  After the hypothesis was made I did an experiment using three cups of water, each marked with the substance that was added to it.  The cups were labeled water, sugar, salt.  I then added three ice cubes to each cup along with a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of sugar to the marked cups.  I then started a timer and waited for the ice to melt.  I repeated the experiment four times in total and recorded the data for each experiment.  I also documented the experiment by taking picture every ten minutes.  When my last experiment was done, I think averaged the times together to get the final totals.  The results the experiments were as follows: cup with water had an average of 84.34 minutes, cup with sugar had an average of 92.45 minutes, and cup with salt had an average of 78.43 minutes.  Based off the results of the experiments I wrote up my conclusion.  My conclusion is that my hypothesis was proven correct.  By adding 1 tablespoon of salt to water the ice cubes in that cup melted faster.  When you look at the result table you see that the cup with salt melted on an average of 5 minutes and 51 seconds faster than the control which was the water and 14 minutes and 2 seconds faster than the cup with sugar in it.  When putting my tri-folded board together I kept in mind organization and neatness.  On my board I displayed my problem, question, hypothesis, material list, process, results, conclusion, and pictures.  The final step of the scientific method is to communicate the results, which we did by being a part of the school-wide science fair.  

I followed Mrs. Foster-Faith’s rubric when designing my project.  The project was graded on hypothesis, materials, procedure/experimental design, results using tables/graphs, conclusion, visuals, organization/neatness, mechanics, originality, and research.  After seeing my rubric grades I realized that I designed my science fair project to a high standard.  I did however leave a whole part out.  That part was the research aspect of the scientific method.  I think this task was an enlightening one.  By seeing this project in a student's eyes you understand the anxiety and the doubt that a student may go through when getting this project.