Spring Semester...Water, Water, Water!

Spring semester seems off to a good start. It's hard to believe there are only 3 weeks until spring break. The spring semester always flies by. This semester I'm teaching intro/environmental chemistry, a section of biology, and a really cool class called road trip nation. The road trip nation is focused on career exploration. I'm adding an emphasis on STEM careers and doing a experimental design research project.

But I wanted to talk about my water unit in chemistry. It has been really fun! I've done two field trips, one to the local water treatment plant and one was a tour through a local tunneled creek. Lots of engagement. The students created designs for rain harvesting systems and explored the energy put into making plastic water bottles. To top it all off it has become a cross-curricular project. It is so exciting when you do something that all the teachers are into! It really helps to create teacher engagement. And when teachers are excited students are usually engaged and interested as well! So unit 1 was great! I'll post pics of the rain harvesting brochures. Hurray for cross-curricular excitement!

Done, Done, Done!

Hurray for winter break! Sometimes it's hard to be positive the last few weeks, but now that it's over there's time for some good thoughts. I thought I would take a few minutes to reflect. And then I'm going to forget about school and students for 3 weeks!!
My climate change project was a flop. I was really hoping it would take off, but it seemed to fall flat. I think there was just too much other stuff going on and it was hard to get students interested in anything. Note ton self not to try big projects so close to the end of the semester.
I did do a cool wrap up project in biology. It was just a simple research project on the kingdoms of life. I had a student make an awesome kids book. I will use the structure of a kids book for projects next semester.

I was also really proud of the results on my Earth Science final. The quality of responses was impressive. I feel like in terms of teaching this has been my best semester yet. I like how I am a lot more prepared. As my teaching coach always said: "it's all about the tools in your toolbox!" The more experience I gain, the more I see the rigor of my content increasing and my students are keeping up!

Top 5 things I've learned this year:
1.Cooperative learning when structured properly really works!
2. Structure and routine from day one are the key to a successful semester.
3. Relationship building and team building are essential to learning.
4. We must teach students how to use the Internet properly. Why stop them from finding information! Encourage them, but make sure you're teaching them how to evaluate if the information is accurate!
5. The more you have the students asking questions, and doing the investigating, the more they learn. In my classroom I want the students asking the questions, not me!

I leave you with those thoughts! I'm off until next year!

Teacher Thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm very thankful for a three day vacation! It is the perfect break to help me make it to the end of the semester! As a teacher I am grateful for the excellent vacation time! It is necessary to recharge every so often so that we're not grouchy or frustrated!

On Monday it's 3 more weeks. Reviewing for the End of course exam in Biology and a final project in Earth Science.

Excited about the final project on climate change. A subject I'm passionate about and hopefully will create engagement. Planning to make it cross-curricular. More on the project later! For now lets enjoy some relaxing time!

The Secret Pocket Foldable!

When I started teaching I had a mentor who taught me a foldable that is AWESOME! I have used this foldable twice this year. Once in biology and once in Earth Science. It has been really fun and the students seem to really enjoy it, get a lot out of it, and their understanding of the content seems to increase. This is a booklet foldable. But the cool part is that there is a secret pocket. The way I have used this is to give the students an assignment for each section of the booklet. The way I have had sucess is that I start off with the cover being very simple and mostly about them decorating and personalizing their foldable. I think this is how you get their interest. Then you increase the rigor of the assignments. You can even do book work for some of the sections and its almost as if the students don't realize they are doing bookwork. I give an assignment and then the next day do an activity to review what was covered. Or you can do the opposite and cover a topic and then for review have them do something in the foldable. In Earth Science the topic was Energy and Resources. The Biology topic I used was Genetics and DNA. For the Earth Science topic in the secret pocket I had the students pick what they think is the best energy source. They had to come up with ten statements from least obvious to most obvious about their source of energy. Then in invisiable ink they wrote their choosen energy source. They were very engaged. The following are some pics of a foldable that had a lot of time and effort put into it.

I act very excited and enthusastic when I introduce the project. It's amazing to me how just letting the student be creative, print in color, and put a personal touch on something, can create engagment and excitment for the students.

Managing Projects

I like creative, messy projects. But the problem is how to manage them for content. The easiest thing to do would be to assign the project for students to do on their own time...but this doesn't work. A few do it but many of them don't. I know the project should be a culmination of what the students have learned, so when I do projects I want lots of content. Some teachers might say that projects take too much time. But I think students can really learn by getting into something on their own. My first year teaching I would get so frustrated with projects. What I've discovered is the key is structure and chunking. Each year I get better at this but it is still a challenge. Every year I find myself changing, revising and trying to make projects more engaging and manageable on my end!

More food!

Just had my formal evaluation. I think it went pretty well. I did a lesson I've done before but I revised it to add in more content. My biology class has been studying gas exchange in cells. This topic is always a little abstract for students. To demonstrate fermentation we made sauerkraut! This really gets their attention. I personally love sauerkraut, but if you had asked me in high school I would have been grossed out. My students had no idea that sauerkraut is fermented cabbage. We also talked about other foods and looked at different types of fermentation. The lab itself is low content. They just cut up cabbage and put it in a bucket. However, just the idea of sauerkraut and fermented food peeks their interest enough to keep them engaged in a few pre-lab notes and short videos. I also do a hot dog and sauerkraut party for the students when the krout is ready! Just one note to remember...maybe a lab with knives is not the best for an evaluation! At least there was no big problems! Maybe it was good...I showed control and lab safety! While I'm on the topic of food I should mention another good food lab involving cells and jello! To show differences between prokaryotic, plant, and animal cells I made jello cells. I used plastic bags and various food/candy to represent organelles. Very visual. I've done candy cell models but this was even better. Students were less distracted. The content level was higher! Okay I promise my next entry won't be about food! But I highly recommend bringing food into the classroom for labs. It's an easy attention grabber!

Classifying and Food

I had two successful lessons last week that I wanted to share. The first was just a quick activity as part of a lesson. In Earth Science we've been doing rocks and minerals. This is a unit I always struggle with engagment. I know geologists who can make rocks interesting. But in the past whenever I get to this unit I find myself searching the internet for hours trying to find something that will get the students interest. I have rock samples and I do labs to indentify them but it just seems to fall flat. For minerals I did a quick activity to review the 4 characteristics of all minerals. I printed out pictures of salt, a rock, ice, sugar, and coal. I made sure to print pictures of the item in different forms. Then I gave each group the pictures and made them draw a chart in chalk on their tables. The chart listed the five items and then the four characteristics of minerals. Inorganic, definite chemical composition, crystals or repeating patterns, and natural. The students had to write yes or no in each box for each characteristic. Then they figured out which of the two items were minerals. Usually my students struggle with visualizing these characteristics. But with this they were able to classify each as a mineral or not. I gave them hints to help them. For example I printed a picture of a sugar cube and also a picture of sugar cane. The students were able to figure out that sugar is not inorganic because they know plants are living. Also writing on the desks with chalk is always fun and engaging! For my other successful lesson I had the students make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to model a rock going from sedimentary to layered rock to metamorphic. If a student has alergies you can have them just use jelly. The students each get a piece of white and a piece of wheat bread. They put peanut butter and jelly on it and then candy (minerals), gummy fish and worms (fossils), and marshmallow (binding agent). This is their sedimentary rock. Then a group of students stack their sandwich and wrap it in plastic wrap. This is layered rock. They then sit on it or apply a lot of pressure and then unwrap it and put it in the microwave for 5 minutes. Heat and pressure to make a metamorphic rock. They loved it. And I gurantee none of them will forget how metamorphic rocks form! I also showed them real rock samples to bring it back to the real thing. Overall it was a fun and successful week. And they were engaged in rocks!