Stem Blog Reflection

• How would you use this tool with your class?

Blogger can be used many different ways. It can be something that students can check for homework assignments or even class updates. It can also be used for research projects and discussion questions within the class. It can be a similar activity to what we did with our class, where we choose a topic and all semester long with posted blogs about that topic. It can also be a way to get students to collaborate with one another on discussion questions. The teacher could post a discussion question and require that all students respond to the question in their own way. 

• How has blogging influenced your ideas on science learning as practice

This blogging assignment has influenced ideas on me for teaching students about the different land forms. It has brought to my attention many different activities that can be done within the classroom as well as done for different assessments. It has shown me ways to implement land forms into different investigations. It has also taught me that students are not going to learn just by reading and listening. Although reading and listening may be helpful to the students learning they are also going to need a few hands on experiences in order to really gain an understanding of the content.

• What did you like and or dislike about the tool and or process

I really enjoyed this process of posting different blogs. It has allowed me to learn a few things about teaching science and has also given me ideas for assessments and activities  I have also learned so much from the blogs of others in the class on topics that I did not choose to cover myself. This was a very helpful assignment because it was an easy way to cover a lot of content and topics.

• How would you use blogs as an assessment tool

As I mentioned in the first question, one way that I would use this tool is for discussion questions. I would post a discussion question and then students would respond to the question in a comment. Each student would be required to respond to the question. I may even post multiple questions and assign each student to a question. I would be able to use this as a type of formative assignment and would be able to check for students understanding of the content. Also by using this tool for research projects and having students post about different topics that they are researching could be used as a summative assessment.

• What are some of your next steps as a blogger?

Some of my next steps may include blogging about the different activities and investigations that my future classroom is a part of. I don't really think I would do much of anything else with a blog though.

Land forms across the curriculum

Teaching students the science of land forms is important. It is important for students to understand how the land forms are structured, and how they relate to the functions of the world. Land forms have a big impact on certain areas, and are located all across the globe. However, it is not only important to teach the science aspects but it is also important to teach the students the history of the land forms. Students should gain an understanding of how the land forms were formed, as well as who and how they were discovered.

Land forms can become a unit the is broadened across all curriculum classrooms. It can easily be incorporated into reading, math, and history as well. Math classes can cover the heights of the different mountains and volcanoes, as well as discover the widths and depths of the water formations. Reading and history classes can cover the famous historians who discovered the land forms in our history.

This week I was able to find a website that listed many different assessments, lessons, and activities for students to work on in the classrooms. I focused on different activities for this type of unit that can be structured in a social studies, or a reading area. It allows students the opportunity to view explorers maps from the earlier centuries and also allows them to understand the age of exploration. Students can be involved in interactive maps online and can learn the goals and ideas of the different explorers. A famous explorer was Christopher Columbus. Students are able to follow his routes and maps through this website.

I think that this website would be a great resource to use in classrooms so that students can grasp a greater understanding of the explorations that were completed in history. Students learn about these in the context of different classrooms, so why not pull all the classrooms together so that students can use the many different types of explorations, and land forms in each classroom. By making this type of lesson a cross curricular unit, students will be able to understand all different aspects of this historical process.

Link: http://mrnussbaum.com/explorers/legends/

APA Reference:

Brooks, Susan. (2013, March 20). Explorers maps, activities, biographies, and more for kids. mrnussbaum.com. Retrieved April 25, 2013 from http://mrnussbaum.com/explorersflash/.

Assessment Ideas for Landforms

Today I ran across a blog by a teacher, that had an idea for assessing students understanding of different land forms. The project that this students had to construct was a flip book on 5 land forms that they had learned about. This idea for assessment really stood out to me. I have always seen assessment ideas such as students constructing life like models of these land forms  but I had never really seen the idea for a flip book. I really liked this because it is simple and also allows for more explanation of the land forms. It also allows students to show their understanding of multiple land forms rather than just one. This flip book idea is also a very inexpensive project since the majority of the resources will be right in the classroom for the students.

Even though this assessment type has the students portraying 5 different land forms, it still gives the students the ability to choose which land forms they would like to explain and draw. The flip book entails that the students choose 5 land forms. The students then draw a picture of each type of land form, and give an explanation for each land form as well. Depending on the grade level, the description of the land form can be more extensive or more basic. Which brings me to another reason why I really liked this form of assessment; It can be used in any grade level, and will be a fun and engaging activity for all students. It is suitable for ESL, Struggling readers, and even talented and gifted students since the complexity of the assignment can easily be adjusted to suit the needs of the students.

Below I will list the link to the blog so that you can also see the pictures that this teacher posted. She posted pictures of an example that she made herself, which I would like to add that it is a fantastic example.

URL Link:
http://amazingclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/09/teaching-landforms.html

APA citation:

Gilchrist, K. (2011, September 8). The AmazingClassroom.com Blog: Teaching Landforms. The AmazingClassroom.com Blog. Retrieved April 4, 2013, from http://amazingclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/09/teaching-landforms.html

Landforms Projects

        This week I read an article on www.ehow.com about different projects that many teachers assign their students during the land forms unit. This article has given me many great ideas for what projects I could assign students to go along with the land forms units as well. The article describes 4 different projects that students can construct such as, making maps, sculpting plateaus, tropical island treat, and desert diorama.

         The first project listed is the making maps project. This is where students students create a map based on a state, country, or Continent depending on the grade level. Students then use symbols included in the legend to mark the different land forms that exist within the map. This is a great way to get kids thinking about all the different types of land forms in the state or country they live in as well as those in other places of the world. Depending on group and class size you can have students make a map of all the different states in the same region as them, or even different countries and continents as well.

        The second project is sculpting plateaus. This activity is constructed with all edible pieces. The students form a plateau out of already made rice krispies, cover it with chocolate and make plants out of green fruits, and candies. This would be an exciting project for students to work on, whether it is in grade school, middle school, or even high school. Knowing that they can eat the project after they are done with it, would probably be great motivation for the students to make it look really good.

           The third project is a tropical island treat, another edible project for students to create. All you have to do is make a blue gelatin mold, place a melon semicircle, or a large cookie in the middle of it so that it appears as an island. The students are then able to decorate the island with edible palm trees, and other edible features of an island. Allowing the students to decorate the island would be a great way to get students thinking about what an island really does look like, and what things they would see on an island.

          The last project that the article listed was a desert diorama. This is where students create a mini replica of what a desert looks like. They can use a shoe box, fill the bottom with sand, and add small replicas of plants and animals that would be seen in a desert. This project can also be adapted to many other types of land forms as well. Students can as creative with this as they want, and honestly I think that this is my favorite project listed so far. You can have students create many different land forms and even make a mini science fair within your classroom with just this one project.

         This article offered me many great ideas for fun and interactive activities that I can implement in my future classroom. It also gave me ways to have my students apply the knowledge of land forms that i would be teaching them. I think that all of the projects that I talked about are great for students to do. I also like how many of them can be used throughout all of the grade levels. They are all very interactive and give students a chance to not only show their understanding but also show their creative sides as well.



Here is the link to the article:
http://www.ehow.com/info_8323781_science-projects-landforms-elementary-school.html

Volcanoes

The article I found today comes from a website called Weather Wiz Kids. This website offers tons of information on different natural disasters. One natural disaster that they offer information on is Volcanoes. Now this blog is designed to discuss different ways to teach elementary students about land forms  so this article is great. It is set up especially for kids. It is question answer form, and is written in student friendly language. It offers many great text features such as

diagrams,

a glossary,

 and tables.

 This article is also great for teachers because it also offers links to lesson plans, experiments, and project ideas that are all online. It is also a great resource for teachers as well because it answers some of those questions that students are really interested in. As well as acts like a guide for the information that the students need to understand what a volcano really is. It mostly covers those important bits of information that teachers really need to focus on. It also has a few little tid bits of information that may not be as important.

This article has many different uses. As I mentioned it can be a resource for teachers, something for them to build their lessons off of, as well as find other lessons. Also, like I said before, it provides ideas for experiments and projects that may be fun to implement in the classroom. This could also be a personal document for students if they are writing a research paper on volcanoes. For instance if the students are to write a research paper on land forms  this article may be one that teachers recommend to their students. The article also moves into another natural disaster at the end, which can be a help to teachers as well, by recommending what to cover next.


Link: http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-volcano.htm

Antarctica: Is it more than just ice?

      In the journal Science Activities I found an article on a study done in a fourth grade class in Greenwood Laboratory School. The study was focusing on how well the students could remember and recall concepts that they learned through hands-on experiences. What interested me most in this article wasn't the study that was conducted, but rather the 3 different activities that they conducted during the study. The three activities covered three different topics. The first topic was the melting of glaciers and ice, the second topic was the differences between the North and South pole, and the third topic was the geography and landforms of Antarctica. The article gives a lengthy list of materials that would be needed to conduct the three different experiments in the classrooms, but my focus today is going to be the different activities.
      The first activity raised the question of whether or not melting glaciers will cause the sea level to rise. Before the main activity they conducted a pre-activity. The students had a clear cup with water and several ice cubes in the cup. Students would mark where the water level was on the cup. After they had marked the cup the students would predict whether the water level would rise or not. This activity also had the students engage in a vocabulary lesson on the difference between a glacier and an iceberg. The main activity consisted of students in groups of 2 or 3. Students would roll a chunk of play dough into a ball and then flatten the top of the ball and place it into an aluminum plate. The flattened play dough represents the continent and students pour water around the play dough to represent the ocean. Ice cubes are placed into the water as well, to represent the icebergs, and a hunk of ice is placed on top of the play dough to represent the glacier. Students then  mark the play dough with a toothpick and predict whether the water level will rise or not. Students wait for the ice cubes and hunk of ice to melt and record their findings. After they are done with their experiment the students discuss why the level didn't change from the "icebergs" but did change from the melting "Glacier".
      While the students were waiting for the icebergs and glaciers to melt they were given a review of the differences between the north pole and the south pole. After the review they were then given a quiz. The quiz given had artwork on it as well as the quiz questions. This quiz was used as the second activity in the study and in the article there is a table displaying the questions and how many answered them correctly and how many answered them incorrectly.
      The third activity focuses on Antarctica's land forms. The students were given a blank map of Antarctica and a list of features to depict on the map. Students were allowed to use any resources that were available such as computers, maps, globes, etc. Once students were done locating the different features the teacher then showed the students a completed and correct version of the map. They were then debriefed on how it is difficult to locate land forms in Antarctica because its features are constantly changing.
      This article was very descriptive. It listed the standard alignment with each of the different activities, gave figures for each of the different activities such as photos of the students performing the first activity, a table of the quiz results, and a photo of the map. I really enjoyed this article because it showed many different ways to engage students in just one lesson. The lesson focus was clear, and all the activities focused on different learning styles making this lesson idea really easy to incorporate into any elementary classroom.


Link to Article:

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&sid=b46f5da7-d6e6-4ac9-932c-0098f05ca6bb%40sessionmgr14&hid=23&bdata=JmxvZ2luLmFzcCZzaXRlPWVob3N0LWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=38221276
     

The article Nature Has a Formula That Tells us When it’s Time to Die by Robert Krulwich raised a lot of different opinions for me. First off, the thought of having a mathematical formula that can determine the life span of plants and Animals and possibly even humans seems a little over the top. Personally I don't believe that it is possible to determine the length of an organism’s life span. Like the article said, a human’s life holds a lot of chance within it. Sometimes life brings surprises and we never know what is going to happen next. This could be the same with animals and plants as well. Natural disasters can happen at any point and time, and these disasters can cause plants and animals to lose their lives as well as humans. Their lives hold just as many opportunities for chance as humans lives do. Second, the thought that our hearts have been given a certain number of beats until it expires is a little intense. Our hearts beat multiple times within a minute. When we do strenuous activity our heart rates increase. By the end of just one day our hearts may have beat over a thousand times, and at that rate it wouldn't take long to reach a billion heart beats. Another thought on this would be that  if we did only get a certain number of heart beats, wouldn't we be advised to slow ourselves down in order to keep our hearts beating slow like the elephants heart, rather than hurrying through the day and having our hearts race like a hummingbirds heart? This article does bring into thought that there are many other factors that play a role in how long an organism lives. For instance the "Chance" that I had mentioned earlier, as well as sicknesses and environmental aspects. Through technology and knowledge we have also lengthened our lives as well. We can now protect ourselves as well as educate ourselves on the many different aspects that can harm or even kill us. Throughout the years we have raised our chances from 1 in 2 to 1 in a million (this is an exaggeration) and have been able to give ourselves the gift of time. Something that maybe those who lived 100 or 200 years in the past wouldn't have been able to do. However, I have also thought about the fact that yes I may be wrong. Everything in this blog is just my opinion. I have no fact behind this and I didn't conduct any research to get this information. This is all straight from me and I do realize that there is a chance that I am wrong. Robert Krulwich could be 100% correct and our lives could have been designated for us like he mentions in his article. I also think that a lot of his article is based on opinions as well. He does have fact and probably did a little research his self but in my opinion I don't think that calculating someone or something’s lifespan is possible.

Source: 

https://lms.bvu.edu/section/content/default.aspWCI=pgDisplay&WCU=CRSCNT&ENTRY_ID=7AE7F8CFB2A047C3A449F9F9651ABABC