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.

Our Time Is Up

So our time has come to an end with our science after-school program and it's time to celebrate the students and our accomplishments.  In the after-school program the students learned about about physical science, life science, earth science, and the scientific method.  The students of our program were amazing to work with.  They were engaging and respectful through the whole process.  For our celebration our cooperating teacher had a great surprise for all the students.  She made liquid nitrogen ice cream.  This process is pretty simple but, needs to have safety in mind.  She added half-and-half into a metal pot and a graduate student held the pot with pot holders.  As the teacher poured the liquid nitrogen into the pot the graduate student stirred the half-and-half.  We made a bit of a mess, but after, a while the half-and-half turned into ice cream.  Everyone found this process to be very cool and it was a great way to end our time together. 

To Inquiry About The Inquriy Process

Inquiry Instruction Lesson:
The inquiry lesson plan focused the execution of the scientific method.  First, we reviewed the scientific method with the students.  Then, Michael and I modeled the process that the students were going to use in their experiment.  We then showed the students a prezi on magnets which would aid their understanding of the topic for the experiment.  The students then conducted an experiment using the scientific method on the topic of magnets and liquid.  During the experiment students were to fill out a graphic organizer following the scientific method.  At the end of the lesson we had all the groups communicate their results to finish out the scientific method.

 
Reflection
As we worked through the direct lesson I could feel the students excitement of the topic.  This lesson was to allowed students to explore the scientific method.  This lesson workout very well and the students were engaged in the experiment and the scientific process.  The one thing I should have changed the plan for presenting.  We only had 5 students in our class that day and we had the time.  I should have allowed all the students to present on their own.  This would have allowed everyone to see how each person can get different results.  We also ran out of time and did not get to give the students their post-assessment sheet.  I did not think I would enjoy teaching Science but, I had a very good time teaching this topic.

To Begin With The Direct Way

Direct Instruction Lesson:
The direct lesson plan focused on the scientific method.  We started with a pre-assessment sheet for the students to fill out.  We then taught the steps of the scientific method and the concept for each step.  Students learned what a scientist do and how they use the scientific method.  We used two smartboard activities for our guide practice. At the end of the lesson we gave the students a exit ticket to assess how much of the information they retained from the lesson.  

Reflection
This time around we were the last group to go.  Michael and I had worked together in our social studies class and we work very well together.  In these session I felt less scared and less intimidated.  The direct lesson flowed very well and Michael and I feed off each other very well.  This was also a great learning experience.  In our direct lesson we need to work on using more check for understanding throughout the lesson.  We should have put in more stop and think questions after every couple of slides.  This would have enforced the concepts even more.  Other things I found I need to work on is my use of academic language which was better in this lesson, but, I still caught myself saying "you guys". I had a good time teaching this topic and the students were engaged through the lesson. 

Here We Go Again

So Mike and I got to teach together for a second time this semester.  This time around it did not feel as much as a whirlwind.  Within an hour and a half time period we taught two different lessons to a great group of students.  The hour and a half was broken into two parts: direct and inquiry lesson.  Within those parts we explored the scientific method.  This time around we were the last group to present and I felt like we had a much better grasp of what we were doing this time.

Overall we did a good jog of being prepared with our materials, staying on topic, and keeping students focused.  But, no matter how prepared you something can always go wrong and it did.  While setting up for our lessons, I got to the classroom first and went to hook up my laptop to the smartboard just to find out it was not compatible with the smartboard equipment.  When Mike got to the classroom he loaded his laptop and we had everything we needed except our smartboard activities.  I spent a couple of minutes to reconstruct our activities and we were on our way.  This taught me that you should always be prepared, but, you also need to be able to roll with what ever comes your way.  Some of the things that went well in the lesson today were our time management between the two lessons.  The lessons also flowed into each other and kept the students engaged.  The students also like coming to the smartboard to do our guided practice activities.  The lesson was not perfect, but it was definitely better then our first time teaching.  In the direct lesson we could have had more stop and think questions after every couple of slides.  This would have enforced the concepts even more.  In the inquiry lesson we could have allowed each student present their results instead of as a group.  There were only 5 students in the class that day and we had time for them to all present.  We also ran out of time and were not able to give the students their post-assessment sheet. 

 
Direct Instruction Lesson:
The direct lesson plan focused on the scientific method. We taught the steps of the scientific method and the concept for each step.  Students repeated the step and concept after each slide. 


Inquiry Instruction Lesson:
The inquiry lesson plan focused the execution of the scientific method.  Students conducted an experiment using the scientific method.

Third Times The Charm

What a great way to learn about rocks.  The third group presented Earth Science.  This group focused on three types of rocks: Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic rocks.  They opened the lesson with a pre-assessment fill in the blank. They handed out a graphic organizer to help the student follow the slides.  Some of the students had trouble with this graphic organizer.  They then taught the class the three different types of rocks. Explaining their characteristics, where they can be found, and different examples of each.  They then showed a great video on the three types of rocks.  The students really like this video.  When the video was over they then reviewed the graphic organizer as a class. As a guided practice the group used a interactive smartboard game called Rocks or Soils which the class engaged with well.
In the inquiry lesson the students became geologist.  As geologist they were to test rocks to classify them.  The group did a great job modeling the process the students were going to use.  The students were asked to test the rocks using a table for qualities: Shape, Color, Streak, Luster, Hardness, and Grain Size.  By the qualities each rock had the students classified the rocks by igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.  The students were engaged in the task of being a geologist and testing rocks.       

It's Time for Round Two

The second group presented Life Science.  This group focused on classifying different things.  They had a great opening activity were they group the people in the room into two different groups, then they broke those groups into more groups.  First, it was by college students and elementary students.  Then, within those groups we separated into groups with buttons on their shirts and without.  Last, those new groups were separated into people who can roll their tongues and people who can't.  So we started out with 2 groups and ended with 8 groups.  The groups started with teaching variations, species, traits and classify to the students.  They then taught the students about dichotomous key.  They had the students repeat that word through out the lesson which was a great way for them to remember the word. They used a great video on the dichotomous key.  Then, they reviewed the vocabulary words that were used through out the lesson.  The guided practice was based on how to use a dichotomous key using leaves.  The group called students to the board to help them classify the leaves.
The inquiry lesson was on using the dichotomous key.  The students were given a bag of jelly beans that had both good tasting beans and bad tasting beans.  The idea came for the Harry Potter and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.  The students had to use a dichotomous key to classify the jelly beans without tasting or smelling the beans.  They students were very engaged in this activity.  They took the dichotomous key very seriously because no one wanted to eat a vomit flavored jelly bean.  This group did a great job at keeping the students engaged and focused on the subject at hand.

The First of Four

Today the first group presented to our after-school program.  There are about 16 students ranging from 3rd grade to 6th grade.  We started with our cooperating teacher speaking to the students about what she expects from us as the teacher candidates and what she expects from them as the students.  The first group presented the lesson topic physical and chemical changes in matter.  The group first did some experiments to demonstrate physical and chemical changes.  They added sand to water and got no change, added salt to water and got no change, ripped up an index card to show a physical change, and added baking soda to vinegar to show a chemical change.  They also played a great video that explains the different types of matter and their properties.  When they moved into their inquiry part of the lesson they set up four stations.  The stations were making a bouncing ball, a lava bottle, goop, and tin foil boats.  The students had to record the process they were doing and if they had made a physical or chemical change.  The students loved these stations and ever engaged with the teachers at the stations.  The students had a good time at their first night of our after-school program. We will have to wait and see what next week will bring us.

Learning The Ropes

Today we met with Tiffany Davis the librarian for the Mount's Curriculum Materials Center.  The librarian spoke to us about all the resources that the curriculum library has for us to use.  Within the library they have both fiction and non-fiction books for juvenile(K-5) and young readers (6-12).  The library also has manipulative sets for varies activities and both student and teacher additions of text books.  She also discussed with us two databases to use when researching  articles, Education Research Complete (Ebsco) and ERIC (Ebsco). This was my first time in the curriculum library and having someone to explain the functions and tools of the library was a great feeling.  Know I do not feel as lost when it comes to finding materials.

Link to the Mount Saint Mary College Curriculum Materials Center

After meeting with the librarian we moved to to a meeting with our cooperating science teacher.  She stated that we would have around twelve students from the 3rd and 4th grades.  She then used a term I had not heard before called "Hand & Mind".  When the hands are exploring the mind is working.  By engaging students in exploratory learning they internalize the knowledge with a deeper understanding.  She asked us to make our lessons not "Paper & Pencil" but "Hand & Mind".  To get the students engaged with the activity and see what the discover about the world around them.
She then asked us to do a science fair project.  She wants us to put ourselves back in 7th grade.  When you do this you then experience the process just as your students will.  We will follow the same criteria and rubrics that her classes will follow.  We will follow the scientific method to conduct an experiment.  Our experiments will be displayed with the rest of the students on February 19. 

Scientific Me

My earliest memory of science is from fifth grade.  The lesson was on different sources of energy.   I was introduced to wind power, solar power, and different fuels.  At the end of the lesson, the teacher asked the questions can you get power from anything.  She then gave each group of student a three graphic organizer with a list of objects on one side and yes/no boxes on the other. Each graphic organizer had a different title:  hypothesis, test one, and test two.  She also gave each group a set of wires connected to a light bulb.  When she set the box of objects in the middle of each group she asked us to fill out the hypothesis sheet.  The objects were potato, metal spoon, plastic fork, rubber band, plastic duck, paper clip, safety pin, a penny and piece of wood.  Without touching any of the materials, we were to guess which objects would turn on the light bulb.  After that paper was filled out, we set it to the side and took out the paper with test one written on it.  Now as a group we were to test each object by connecting both wires to the object and seeing if the light bulb would light up.  As we examined each object, we were to check either the yes or no box.  When the first test paper was done, we put that to the side and took out the paper that said test two.  Our teacher told us that good scientist always tests their experiments more than once. We ran our tests on the objects again but in a different order.  When we were finished filling out our test two papers, we cleaned up all our materials and as a group discussed our findings. We had to put the objects into two groups:  conduct electricity and does not conduct electricity.  We had to compare our hypothesis page to our findings.  I remember that our findings were the same as our hypothesis except for one object.  We stated on our hypothesis page that a potato would not turn the light on, but it did.  After we had discussed all our finding as a group, we presented to the class our results.  This was one of my favorite science topics I can remember from school. 

    In the elementary grades science was one of my favorite subjects. As I went on in my schooling science became more facts and rules, than experiments and exploring.  I remember not liking science through middle school and the first part of high school.  It was not until my eleventh-grade science class when I started to like science again.  In eleventh grade, I took a class called environmental science.  This class focused on how our daily living impacts our environment.  I remember we spent a lot of time outside observing nature, measuring rain and snowfall, finding patterns in weather, and conducting experiments on things like dredging rivers or effects of pollution on water and land.  My favorite part of this class was our final project, which was to design an ecosystem for the big courtyard that is surrounded by our school.  In the project, you need to have a balance so all living things could live without human intervention.  First we spent a week of class time in the football field to measuring the space, observing the amount of light it got, have much rain it received, and the temperature.  Then we spent a week of class in the courtyard were we observed the same criteria as the football field.  When we were done, we compared the results.  From our results, we had to decide on what type of ecosystem we would design.  The range of ecosystems was very diverse.  Some of the ecosystems people pick were the desert, rainforest, forest, grassland, and freshwater.  I designed a freshwater ecosystem based around a central pond in the center of the courtyard.  In this environmental class, I learned more about ecosystems and pollution.  I remember being personally invested in this class because I felt that the material I was learning could make the earth a better place. 

    As I look back on my science experiences, I feel that the classes or lessons that stuck with me were very hands-on and interactive.  For me being able to figure out the answers on my own by trial and error resonated better for me.  If a teacher had stood in the front of the class and told me that a rubber band and a plastic fork do not conduct electricity, but a potato and a paper clip do conduct electricity I would probably have remembered it for a short amount of time.  When I conducted the experiment, I got to find my results, and I developed the confidence of being able to find information on my own.  I also found that when the teacher makes a lesson personal, I would understand the lesson in a deeper way.  In the environmental class, the teacher always would give us suggestions on how we could individually help the environment and that each person could make a change in the world.  By making the learning about the importance I could make in the world, I felt that the material I was learning was critical.  It also made me feel that even if I could change in even the smallest way, I was helping the world.  I think it is interesting that I do not remember any of my classes that were taught just with facts and memorization.  These classes did not give me the opportunity to discover the material in an interesting way.  When I had to read and repeat, I did not internalize the information.  I think that each student needs to be able to personal internalize the information to understand their world.

    Science to me is the study of the way everything works and is found in your everyday life.  It covers everything from the smallest atoms to the biggest solar systems, and science is always being tested and changed.  From my experiences, I believe that science should be hands-on and interactive.  I am very appreciative of the teachers I had that made science personally for me.  I understand that facts and theories are relevant, but a teacher’s job is to find an interesting way to teach them.  My hope is to be an interactive science teacher.  I would like to be able to make each student feel at what they learn in science can be used in their everyday life and by finding an interest in science can help you change the world.