Group items tagged

In this activity, students completely build a habitat. They choose the weather, who lives there, vegetation, etc. The game has a compatibility meter that tells them how close they are to building the perfect habitat. I chose this resource because the game tells the student when they are doing well, or if the conditions are not working together. I would use this as a part of a lesson about biology and wildlife.

In this game, students learn about animals, their different characteristics and adaptations, and the habitats they live in. They can also pick and choose parts of animals and put them together to create their own animal. I chose this game because students will learn what animals can survive in different habitats and learn which parts of the animals are most helpful. I would see myself incorporating this into a lesson or using it as an extra activity for students to do at the end of the lesson.

This is a really cool activity that could be used in a unit about weather. The students create a "cloud" inside a mason jar and watch as the food coloring "rains" down through the cloud. I could see myself creating a lesson very similar to the lesson depicted on this page. The students read a story about clouds and rain and then did this activity following the reading. Although this activity was done with pre-school children, I think it would be appropriate for first through third grade. I might use this at the beginning of a unit on weather. This could also be a cool center activity for a center day. All the centers could have a weather theme. Or I could also see this activity being useful when discussing the water cycle. Students would be able to see how the "cloud" holds the water for a short time but then releases it. I really can't wait to use this one!

This is a quick and easy science experiment on what happens when it rains. This would be a good experiment to do after a lesson or two on rain or clouds. It shows how the "clouds" (shaving cream) get heavy with water and causes "rain" (blue food coloring) to fall. I would use this in my classroom because it's cheap, quick, and easy. Shaving cream is always a big hit in the elementary classroom!!

To show students that many kinds of organisms can be sorted into groups in many ways using various features to decide which organisms belong to which group. Classification systems are not part of nature. Instead, they are frameworks created by biologists to help them understand and describe the vast diversity of organisms and suggest relationships among living things. I would need adapt this lesson to meet a standard, but I would try to make the connection that plants and animals have similar internal and external structures to survive.

Astronomy facts of the day present by the Saint Louis Science Center is a great way to introduce the topic of Astronomy, as well as, to build my students knowledge of the topic. Not only does this website include facts, but it also includes occurances that happen on that specific day in the sky which students may be able to witness. This resource could be used daily during my planet and constellation lesson plans, in addition to randomly the rest of the year after the students learn about the topic.

Great resource! SO interesting.

Join the Saint Louis Astronomical Society as the host public star parties at the Science Center on the first Friday of each Month! This resource is an excellent, not-to-mention free, field trip opportunity for students to get up close and personal with our solar system. This weather permitting event is open to the public and allows the student to visually explore the stars through telescopes while also having the opportunity to ask the St. Louis Astronomical Society any questions they may have. This field trip opportunity, if not allowed to travel as a class, is a great resource to share with parents to extend their students learning process. In addition, this website includes nightly sky updates that can be shown via a projector in class, as well as, Astronomy facts of the day.The Saint Louis Science Center would prove to be a great field trip experience during my planet or constellation lessons.

Introducing Discovery Channel's "How Big is My Universe." This Discovery Channel school video was created to show students the many different parts of our galaxy along with the properties of its elements. This is not only a great introductory resource for my Solar System unit, but it also encompasses a program overview that includes a lesson guide. This extra resource includes discussion questions, teacher activities, related resources, and important vocabulary words. As the video guide suggests, " What better way to answer the eternal question about size than to bring the solar system down to earth?"

This is such a cool concept that I really wanted to find the video available online. I'm surprised I can't find it! I did, however, locate it as a DVD available as DVD from software express (swexpress.com) for 31.95. Steep price. Maybe libraries have it?

This is just a video that you could show at the beginning of a lesson about food chains and how they work to keep our world going and to get students engaged.

This website has a great variety of lessons and activities for children in relation to astronomy. I like the Earth, Sun and Moon link under the Games section. There are also quizzes, facts, videos and much more to explore!

This website allows students to interact and learn a lot about plants. It is very interdisciplinary. I selected this resource because I think it would be fun for kids and grab their attention. I would use this resource during a unit on plants, and this website alone could be used for at least a week to talk about all of the different things that are involved with plants. I think students would have a good understanding of plants after going through the different lessons of this website. 

Tons of content, which requires a LOT of reading! I would up this to grades 3 and above, I think. Especially like the bilingual aspect!

The St. Louis Science Center often provides preview days for educators to come check out the new exhibit featured. This preview allowed the educator to see the exhibit and the movie along with receiving some resources on how to lead the students through the exhibit. I think it is important that teachers be able to view exhibits and have a lesson ready before taking their students on a trip. I think that any teacher would benefit from such a workshop even though the material offered would be suitable for grades 3-8.

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.

The website includes directions for a great kinesthetic approach to teaching constellations. This project consists of star cookies which the students configure into different constellations. I selected this resource to use during my stars lesson plan. After seeing the stars in the distances I feel this project will bring the idea of constellations down to earth.

I was surprised to find this website to be written in French! It would require some calculation to convert the recipe from grams to our more standard measurements, or at least a kitchen scale. This recipe isn't essential to the star shape, though, which could be achieved with regular sugar cookie dough and a small star cutter.I do love the idea of placing the cookies in a pattern and connecting with chalk or crayon to either "create" new constellations (for which students could also write related myths or stories) or review and recreate the existing constellations under study.

This lesson explores the life cycle and traits of pumpkins. The class first makes a flip chart that shows the life cycle of a pumpkin. The next day the class could go to a local pumpkin patch and pair up with a partner to investigate one pumpkin per group. They would look at how many lines are on each pumpkin, the texture of the pumpkin and the color. Then the class would come back and create a graph to show what they discovered in the pumpkin patch. This is a great way to show the students the life cycle of a pumpkin and allow them to see that every pumpkin has unique traits.

This website is interactive and allows children to work together. In this activity students pair up and see what their children's eyes would look like if they had a child together. I selected this website because I thought it would reinforce some of the Punnett Squares and other genetic content covered. Also, I thought it would be fun and engaging for students to pair up and work together. I would use this resource as an activity to go along with a lesson that I taught. Students would work together to see how genetics play a role in their child.

Water, ice, steam: Three states of matter. In this animated movie, you'll learn about the tiny atoms and molecules that make up matter and how changes in temperature and pressure cause these particles to gain or lose energy, thereby changing a material's physical properties! This video provides students with a lesson on the different states of matter. It explains why the matter change to different states and what they are made up of. I believe that this can help student understand what the different states of matter are as well as provide the student with extra knowledge.

This is an activity for the first day or as an introduction to the scientific method or to just allow students to work in groups so that you can get to know them better. I usually do all instructions verbally and don't require any written documents for turning in. __________________________ This is a cute activity to use for smaller aged students to introduce them to the scientific method with little prep work from the instructor. All the teacher needs is gummy worms, life savors, paper clips, and plastic cups. Sam (the worm) is stuck on a boat (the cup) and the life jacket (life savor) is under the cup. The students will use paper clips to retrieve the life jacket and put it on Sam to save him. While doing this, students will work with a partner to explore ways to save Sam. I would use the link below as it goes along with the lesson and gives questions for the students to answer and record during their exploration to save Sam. The worksheet can be tailored to match the appropriate age group conducting the experiment. https://docs.google.com/document/d/15ahlJ9CSEB31IPgJOFO2LW62K5PoxbN6hosNneO2tRc/edit?hl=en_US I think this would be a fun activity that would allow the instructor to see how the students work together and who is taking the lead role. At the same time, the students are being introduced to creating an hypothesis, recording their observations, and coming to conclusions. I would probably use questions from the above link for higher grades such as 2nd - 5th. If I did this activity with K and 1st grade, I probably would just discuss vocabulary terms as well as their thoughts and observations during group discussion versus having them document on paper.

This is a brief explanation on why the sky is blue followed by an activity. I chose this source because I have always wanted to know the definitive answer to the question: Why is the sky blue? I would use this in an older elementary classroom as a lesson followed by a lab activity.

This is an activity illustrating how the tiny particles of the ringed planets can be seen so far away despite their small size. I chose this activity because I liked it, and because I liked that it had a discussion after its completion. I imagine my class will complete this activity and then we will discuss our findings as a whole group.