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Do you know where/how Earth Day started? What do you think about the idea of "every day is earth day"?

Free video streaming, lesson plans, and other resources from ECB and PBS. Use this web site to find video resources and lessons to support your big ideas. For all grade levels and all science strands.

This website is great to help create a lesson or a whole unit. It has tons of worksheets, tests, individual activities, arts and crafts and classroom activities that can be used for any subject and topic you decide. It covers grades K-12. As a teacher or a student doing a lesson plan you can go on the website choose your subject and content you want to cover and it gives you all sorts of ideas to help you out. I really liked how each subject has tests offered and activities for students to do to make it fun and hands on and games that can be played. This is a resource for all subjects but for this class I will stick to the science section. I choose to do a lesson on butterflies. I looked up the butterflies section on the website. All the information was there. Posters that students can create labeling butterfly parts, worksheets they can fill out on the process a caterpillar goes through in order to become a butterfly, quizzes and games students can do to check for understanding. I love that the website is not only interactive itself but it also has tons of printouts for the kids to use in the classroom. C.4.5 Use data they have collected to develop explanations and answer questions generated by investigations LIFE CYCLES OF ORGANISMS F.4.3 Illustrate* the different ways that organisms grow through life stages and survive to produce new members of their type B.4.1 Use encyclopedias, source books, texts, computers, teachers, parents, other adults, journals, popular press, and various other sources, to help answer science-related questions and plan investigations Integration: This website integrates all other subjects for the many different lessons you can choose from. For my butterfly lesson I can integrate reading and we as a class can read the very hungry caterpillar. We can integrate history and writing by writing research papers on the different kinds of butterflies, each student choosing their own butterfly to research. Differentiation: I can have the

Academic Standards that I think would be useful for lessons related to this site and that could easily be applied to various age groups for differentiation include: Core Science Content and Performance Standards Standard B: Nature of Science B. 4.1 Use encyclopedias, source books, texts, computers, teachers, parents, other adults, journals, popular press, and various other sources, to help answer science-related questions and plan investigations. Standard H: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives H. 4.4 Develop a list of issues citizens must make decisions about and describe a strategy for becoming informed about the science around these issues. H. 8.2 Present a scientific solution to a problem involving the earth and space, life and environment, or physical sciences and participate in a consensus-building discussion to arrive at a group decision. Environmental Education Standards Standard B: Knowledge of Environmental Processes and Systems B. 8.10 Explain and cite examples of how humans shape the environment. Standard D: Decision and Action Skills D. 4.3 Identify 2 or more ways to take positive environmental action. D. 4.6 Develop a plan, either individually or in a group, to preserve the local environment. Standard E: Personal and Civic Responsibility E. 4.2 Understand how their personal actions impact their civic responsibilities toward the environment. E. 8.1 Formulate a personal plan for environmental stewardship.

There are various levels and interdisciplinary options for curriculum on this website. Recommended videos include but are not limited to: High Line History (4:19) & High Line Design Video (4:45) Lesson plans are available for grades 2-7 on topics such as: forces, community activism, park design, and machine aesthetic. Curriculum areas include: science, social studies, English language arts, math and arts. To access lesson plans: click on "Schools Program" listed under the main heading "About" and then click on links to download free lessons. Additionally, the picture book The Curious Garden is a great resource about the High Line for younger students in Kindergarten through second grade. I would use this website for a unit of study on stewardship and local environmental activism. The New York High Line project is an inspiring example of urban planning and could be used to encourage students to get involved in land use issues in their own communities. Comparisons could be made to local community gardens or prairie restoration projects and students could be challenged to design or preserve a green space. For example, it could be a yearly class activity to contribute to the design and function of the school yard or another community space. Students could be required to evaluate community needs, research environmental issues and plants specific to the area, locate reusable resources, and participate in class discussions to make democratic decisions. Schools could get all grades involved in brainstorming and voting on sustainable ways to contribute to their community.

Someone had the great idea of putting a camera in a bear's den while they hibernate! Standards that fit under this particular website are: D.4.7 Observe and describe physical events involving objects and develop record-keeping systems to follow these events by measuring and describing changes in their properties, including: * position relative to another object * motion over time * and position due to forces F.4.1 Discover* how each organism meets its basic needs for water, nutrients, protection, and energy* in order to survive

This is the video of the first birds of Phoebe's. We can watch them fly away!

All three of these websites are great things for the younger children to view and get a better understanding for life cycles, hibernation, etc. I think these are great because we concentrate so much on explaining these ideas to children, but they rarely get to observe and take data on these types of things in the classroom, but these websites allow us to do just that! It would be neat for all grades to take a look at these, but for the purpose of my research I would show this to Pre K- 1st Grade. The standards that all three of these websites would fall under are: C.4.2 Use the science content being learned to ask questions, plan investigations, make observations, make predictions, and offer explanations C.4.5 Use data they have collected to develop explanations and answer questions generated by investigations C.4.6 Communicate the results of their investigations in ways their audiences will understand by using charts, graphs, drawings, written descriptions, and various other means, to display their answers C.4.7 Support their conclusions with logical arguments C.4.8 Ask additional questions that might help focus or further an investigation F.4.1 Discover* how each organism meets its basic needs for water, nutrients, protection, and energy* in order to survive F.4.3 Illustrate* the different ways that organisms grow through life stages and survive to produce new members of their type For some integration I would use a ton of math and Social Studies in these activities. The student will have to make predictions about the animals they see and relate it to other things in the environment. We will also keep a class chart of how many times we see the mother hummingbird fly away, measure how big the hummingbirds are. We will keep track of how many days it takes for the hummingbirds to hatch, and how many days it takes them to fly away. And we will also keep track of how many days the bears are in their den, and observe their unusual movement. We will also take th

I stumbled across this web site. Very interesting articles to check out.

Check out this compilation of lesson plans and resources to use water as a topic for study in your classroom. 

Using best practices from Community Problem Solving (CmPS) instructional methods, EcoInvestigators is designed to get students in grades 3-5 engaged, excited, and prepared to take on and solve environmental problems in their community and beyond. With funding from International Paper, we have developed this program to help teachers use a variety of rich media resources to teach earth system science, explore global environmental problems and challenge your students to take steps to using data to help solve local environmental problems. This curriculum is in the beta phase and PBS welcomes feedback on the resources and activities provided on the site. http://www.pbs.org/teachers/ecoinvestigators/. If you have suggestions or comments, please send them to djblubaugh@pbs.org.

A place for students to create safe "facebook" pages about a topic. This can be incorporated into a final assessment project. 

A good web site to be aware of and incorporate into science teaching.

A few weeks ago at a library book sale I picked up a book of lesson plans from Project Wild. After Jeff's presentation last night, I looked through it more thoroughly and found some really awesome lessons and ideas. I thought I would post the site up here as well. Although it does look like the only way to get materials is to attend a workshop or buy them.

Yep - Project Wild was one that costs $25 for a workshop through DNR - visit their workshop page: http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/teacher/calendar.htm Scroll down and you will see you could go to a PLT workshop for early childhood this weekend in Madison. Or, if you want to wait until June there is one in Necedah for $40 tha combines Projects Wet and Wild. If there are enough of you want a separate workshop for WILD and will pay the $25, I can schedule one to be done at Edgewood. I would even be willing to see if we could do it on the last night - since i have to leave early... or maybe on another Saturday at Edgewood?

Use this site to help you determine appropriate topics for different grade levels. This information is helping to inform the new science standards. 

Use these maps to help guide you on grade levels appropriate depth of content in science