Beyond the Classroom

This week's blog post asks us to discuss ways we have tried to bring quality science instruction beyond our classroom.  As working teachers and students in this program, I am sure you all agree that none of us have time to even think about beyond our classroom.  But we may have ideas for things we will do when we are finished with this program and have a little more time available.  I have been doing something, however, to this end.  I am on the science curriculum committee for my district.  After school ends, we join each other with a mentor to revise the curriculum calendar and content for it.  I have done this for 3 years in a row.  Last year we met with science teachers throughout the district and across grade levels.  We examined standard goals across the grade levels to see the commonalities and what we could do at each grade level to build upon the skills and knowledge the students would need as they traveled from 1st to 12th grade.  We linked the standards and added grade objectives to support vocabulary and processing skills to create a spiraling curriculum.  We created curriculum maps indicating the weeks involved with each unit and embedded a resource link into the map so that teachers could access support documents and location of resources to use in their unit.  This year, my prediction would be that we will work on incorporating Common Core Standards.  This group is composed of teachers at each grade level and from different schools throughout my school district.  When school resumes in the fall, we are the representatives to bring the current information and resources to our individual schools.

The 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy published statistics regarding U.S. citizens ages 18 to 24. According to the report, half of Americans cannot locate New York on a map.

The report also states only 37 percent of Americans could find Iraq on a map, despite American troops having been stationed there since 2003. 

 Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.

Shouldn’t this be enough to scare most Americans?  How many people laugh at Jay Leno when he goes “Jay-walking” and people cannot name the vice-president of the United States or some current event.  When American Idol gets more viewers than some national news priority, what can we expect?  Americans are so used to having that the thought of not having, of not being number one, does not enter their realm of possibilities.  People are complacent – they don’t vote.  Politicians are guided by lobbyists.  Morals don’t count.  The environment is not protected.  Bring up global warming and all you’ll get is an attack on Al Gore and no discussion of the problems.  People won’t wake up and pay attention until they don’t have something they want. 

http://northernstar.info/campus/article_b39dff6c-44c6-582f-bcc3-436c4244f357.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-12-07-us-students-international-ranking_N.htm

Tornadoes

I navigated all around about.com looking up tornado occurrences in my state.  I clicked on simple data for my 2nd graders to be able to understand.  I created graphs based on number of occurrences, locations, dates and temperature.  I collected data from the coastal zone, the midlands and the piedmont sections of our state.  Students are fascinated by tornadoes. They would enjoy navigating this site to learn more about tornadoes.  We also live in an area that is affected by hurricanes.  That could be another topic that my students would love to explore and learn about.  There are a lot of great sites that students could investigate to learn about natural disasters such as tornadoes and hurricanes.

Ask-A-Scientist

Well, I asked a scientist, but as of yet, no scientist has responded!

I decided to use Prezi instead of Glogster but I have not been successful in downloading my Prezi to save it on my computer or to submit it in the dropbox.  Has anyone had any luck with this?  I received an e-mail from the Prezi team that says my Prezi will expire in 23 days, which is before the course ends, so that's not good.  Anyone have some advice or info?

Web 2.0

I am planning to create my project using Glogster.  Glogster is a digital poster app.  It is easy to use and has tutorials that can help you learn how to navigate the site.  You can use all sorts of graphics and can also add video and audio clips.  You are able to embed links into your poster.  I want to use this because I want to be able to create a digital poster and know how to navigate the site and then teach my students how to use it.  I am hoping to be able to teach my students in the computer lab how to create a digital poster by the 3rd quarter when we will be learning about animals and their habitats.  The students will be engaged and interested and I will be familiar with it and assist them in creating their posters.