This resource supports all areas of science and environmental education. ECB is a state agency that supports technology in the classroom. Staff, mostly former teachers, put together "Surf Reports" which are collections of effective web sites on different subject areas. Climate Wisconsin is a new project with short (4 min) videos sharing stories of life in Wisconsin tied to our natural resources. It allows middle and high school students to stop and think "what would happen if the climate changed?" WiStem.org provides a link to another ECB web site that supports Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
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.
http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/comets/lesson/lab.html (the link to the lesson I studied further)
The resource I chose to explore and research focuses on the subject of Astronomy. The website is appropriate for a range of ages but I focused on comets specifically and which is appropriate for grades 6-8. It covers standard E and C. Specifically, performance standards E.4.4; C.4.1., and C.4.2.
Integration:
This website can be integrated into many different subject areas. The facts, myths, and legends can easily be worked into a history lesson in social studies. It could also be used to accompany an English lesson if the students are reading material that involves different myths in our history and how we can sort through different narratives through time. There is also a chemistry portion in the website which can be used in that area of science or incorporated into a math lesson.
Differentiation:
I would pick out key vocabulary terms that I want the students to know and make large posters with the term, a short description and a visual. I would post these at the front of the classroom so they were easily accessible for all students.
I could also do this activity as a group or partner activity and pair the students that I think would work to help one another.
EEK! is managed by the Wisconsin DNR and supports mostly environmental education and some life and environmental science. The site is an environmental education resource for elementary and middle-school students. Content is written in an accessible format for students and is available in both English and Spanish. This resource could be used to integrate math (population, size), social studies/geography (mapping) and reading.
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
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.
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