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Why are bowling lanes oiled with more oil placed at the start of the lane and less at the end? What is the advantage of throwing a "hook" ball? Students participate in activities to learn about the members of their team and how to work together in order to be successful. There are several reasons I like this idea for a field trip. For one, it's an unconventional type of science field trip. Most students wouldn't think there is a lot to consider when bowling; they just toss the ball down the lane. Before the field trip, I would spend a day or two allowing the students to formulate and hypothesize ideas for how to best knock down the pins with a bowling ball. They would have to consider things like speed, angle, bowling ball weight, where the ball should hit the pins, and whether the ball should be hooked or thrown straight. This field trip allows the students to not only question and hypothesize, but to actually test their predictions. After the field trip we could delve deeper into some of the physics concepts at play (which the webpage has links for) as well as watch a professional bowler bowl.

Creative "spin" on a science field-trip! :) Get it!?

This website provides several resources for teachers. There are several science experiment lesson plans along with supplemental materials. There is also a JustAsk section that addresses classroom issues such as bullying.

This site has a lot of neat experiments where you can choose the grade level and content. For my unit plan I would select "Earth and Space Science" in order to get ideas on different activities and experiments to do in class with my students. I picked this site because the activities are ones where the students could use their creativity to come up with something unique. For instance, they could make a homemade planetarium, make a spaceship using old CD's, or even make a solar system of students. I would use this site in the classroom to get ideas on how to get the students out of their seats, but yet keep them interested. The activities from this site are ones that the students would definately enjoy.

This website is amazing! It offers over 100 interactive online games on more than 30 different topics and it is completely free. Science games are excellent assets to any Science lesson. Interactive games make learning complicated concepts fun and easy for some children. As an adult playing some of these games I felt like I gained a better understanding of certain topics, so I know some children would find these games beneficial and effective extensions to lessons. This website seems to have a little bit of everything from animal classification to biomes to physics and motion. Some of the games offer a short assessment at the end to really see if the children are learning the concept. Having games like these available would make a great addition to a remediation plan if students are having difficulties grasping a particular topic. I will definitely be visiting this site again when I am teaching!

"Is your fourth grader a hands-on learner? If so, just reading about the layers of the Earth may not be enough to inspire or even interest him. Turn the abstract lesson into a practical craft with the fun and colorful creation of dough earth layers!" This lesson plan lays out the layers of the Earth through the fun artsy craft of play dough creations. Basically the child will create their own personal batch of dough-incorporating color dye and close guidance. The student will then use their play dough to collaborate on the outer crust of the earth, the water, the land the inner core and the crust. Students are capable of physically making the play dough thin or thick in accordance to the knowledge of their information. They are applying their understanding of the earth and what it's made of basically at their own fingertips.

This resource contains an interactive program of various materials that demonstrate sound and vibrations that make sound. The program allows students to change materials, pitch, and force. I chose this resource because it fits well with the standard (1-PS4): Plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make a sound and that sound can make materials vibrate. During my lesson, I will focus on this standard, and this program would serve as a fun activity for students. In my lesson, I would use this program as an introduction. This activity would expose students to a variety of sounds and materials while introducing vibrations.

This website includes: lesson plan, worksheets, higher-level thinking and reasoning questions for students. It has four weeks of activities to better understand the solar system and the entire universe and what it is made of. The four weeks are sections off into groups: Universe, Solar System, Earth and Geography. This website list all materials needed, the background information needed, higher-level thinking questions asked to students, diagrams and visual on each subject matter. There is a lab that gets the students working together and reasoning through their connections and answers. I would use this in my third grade classroom to help the students reason on why the planets rotate like they do, and other higher-level thinking questions. This will help the students reason, think on higher-levels of questions not just in science but in all subject areas.

Great find!

This resource is a unit plan that can include up to five lessons on human body cells. It covers cells from their beginning to cell aging and death and is very relatable in its presentation. Allows students to connect the scientific content to their 'everyday lives' Also addresses different cells with specialized functions but shows how they work together. Selected because the cell forms the foundation for the study of life.

BrainPop Jr. is an interactive website that is aligned with the Common Core Standards. It includes lesson plans, games, movies, quizzes, and other types of learning activities. The site also includes away for teachers to keep up with the progress of their students. There are different ways to purchase membership. The membership categories include, parents, home school, single classroom, school, district, or virtual school. There are also ways to receive funding. I would use this site as an alternative way to keep the students involved. I would only utilize this site in class only because all students do not have internet and computer access outside of school.

Once students have learned to observe weather, they can build their own weather tools through the directions on this website. They can record their own weather data and understand how we find temperature, wind speed, cloud type, humidity, etc. Teachers could incorporate this into future lesson plans to engage students about weather and give them a hands-on experience into the world of a meteorologist.

I like the opportunity for students to make their own weather instruments. They could do this in class, or as a family project and then monitor different aspects of the weather at home as well.

Gamestar Mechanic is my technology resource. This game, available for download and online, teaches kids how to create their own video games. There is a big teacher section online for the program with videos explaining how to use Gamestar Mechanic as well as a place for teachers who use the program to blog about their experiences and share lesson plans using this game. I would like to use this as a tool in problem solving where all my students could help create a "game" or for students to use during free time or inside recess. The pdf file and the ideas for lessons are very interesting and I think this can be used as a tool to open up student's to the many different sides of engineering and creating.

"Present an activity that uses globes to show that some birds migrate east and west rather than north and south." This activity can incorporate problem solving, prediction, reasoning, and many more options.

This website is a complete unit on plate tectonics for 6th grades. There is a planning guide, scope and sequence, activities, pre and post assessments, and formative assessments. All free and easy to download in as a PDF. The unit has been aligned with the science standards and would provides detailed instructions throughout. By the end of the unit students would know plate tectonics accounts for important features of the Earth's surface and major geological events, the location of earthquakes, mid-ocean ridges, and distribution of fossils, rock types, and ancient climatic zones.

This resources lists instructions on how to make Ice Cream in a bag. I think this is a great way to reward students for all the hard work they do while not completely letting them rest their brains (like they would if they were watching a video). Another thing I like about this lesson is that it could be performed with students at various ages. I could definitely see my future classroom participating in this activity after a lesson on reactions. I would also plan to use this activity on a partial day to keep the learning going instead of an activity like watching a movie. This is also a great way to incorporate an educational activity into a party.

Garden Classes represent our signature field trip experiences for school groups visiting the Garden! Each program begins with an introductory program in the Jordan Education Wing. Trained instructors engage students with storytelling, group-participation activities and inquiry-based hands-on experiences. All activities are standards-based and age-appropriate, and each student will pot a plant of their own to bring home! I would combine the "Heaps of Seeds" class with my garden in a glove lesson plan. Upon return to the classroom, the students could write about the differences in the growing environment at the Botanical Garden and in their Glove Garden.

This resource has many ideas on the study of the ocean. The content is spread out from kindergarten all the way to eight grade with exploring the sea by different types of activities and experiments. One of the activities goes with our sensory ability to feel different sea objects and guess what they are. This would be a good activity to talk about the scientific reasoning. (Kinda like the first day of class activity.) In regards to studying the ocean, their are many topics that will be discussed and learned through the lessons on this topic.

This is a website from a first grade teacher's blog. I am using the pictures for a craft idea that I would use for my lesson plan. To understand the life cycle of a plant, the students would need to have a visual of all the parts of the plant. This is also great becuase they would label all of the parts and the elements of what a plant needs to survive. It is so cute, I love it!

This resource was organized into the four different seasons. Once you decide which season you want to explore, you click on the specifc button which then leads you to many different artifacts. There were coloring sheets that went along with the season which would be a great tool for free time during this unit. Another great tool on this site was the games. Each season had games that ranged in difficulty. I could use the game section of this website as a computer center for the students. I would definitely use this website in the classroom as well as a resourse for planning my lessons.

Direct link to the Journal Archives of The Association for Science Education, the British equivalent of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) in the US. The ASE publishes four journals, which are all archived here. Some articles are available for free, but others are locked. Articles feature classroom and research-based ideas for teaching science at a variety of levels.

This website is an interactive website that looks at climate through videos, games and articles. It focuses on how climate and weather affect land, water, and animals. I chose this website because there were a lot of cool pictures and activities I thought would be fun for my students. It also has a section that helps educators build lesson plans that align with NGSS, which I think is a valuable asset. It stated that it was geared toward upper elementary, but while looking through it I felt any student, Kindergarten and up, would benefit.

Interactive website to help develop kids in the subject of astronomy.

This website has several information about the solar system and space. It could be useful to both the teacher and students. For teachers, it has a lot of useful information to use while planning/presenting a lesson. For the students there are several different links to play game and learn about the solar system and space.