Group items tagged

This website is based in Texas but is a group of individuals that will come into your classroom and teach the students about the need for plants and animals. I selected this website because I feel that younger students love to hear an expert on a subject come in and talk about it. I would use this resource at the beginning of my lesson segment on plant and animal biodiversity to get the students engaged and excited to learn.

This resource shows instructions, materials and photos for creating a shoe box habitat. The website lists that this craft is for 1st graders, but I think that it could be just as easily used in a 2nd grade classroom. Students get to choose which type of habitat they would like to create and are able to work on it at school and home. I selected this resource because I feel that it would be a great activity to reinforce 2-LS4-1. This craft would not be necessarily a lesson, but rather something that ties into the after math of learning about animal/plant habitats. I would use this resource as either an end of the unit craft to discuss in the class and compare/contrast each others, or as an extra credit project to do at home.

This hands-on activity allows students to get a better understanding of why a tree's leaves change colors. By doing this activity, we will be able to see how a leaves colors stay hidden in the leaf all year long. Students will collect leaves prior to doing this experiment, and will place them in small jars filled slightly with rubbing alcohol. Those leaves will be chopped up into tiny pieces and left in the jar which will be covered with a lid or plastic wrap. The jars will soak in water for about a half an hour. Students will then use a strip of coffee filter paper to see the colors from the leaves bleed. They will see different shades of green, orange, red, and maybe some yellow depending on the type of leaf. I chose this experiment because it allows the students to understand chromatography, chlorophyll, and different pigments found in leaves. By doing a hands-on activity, students are more engaged and anxious to find out what is going to happen. I envision this experiment being used at the end of a plant lesson in science. We would have been discussing different types of plants, trees, flowers, and why they are all different colors. There will also be many important vocabulary words that the students will need to understand, which will be present in this activity. We will conduct this experiment in small groups so that students are able to participate and see what is going on.

This resource is a web page that has an entire outline and all of the information to do a field trip at Glacier National Park in Montana. This field trip is designed for 2nd grade (in the fall or spring) and has a duration of 4 hours. The group size listed is for 45 students. This is an excellent field trip that allows students to observe plants and animals in their natural habitats, compare/contrast, and communicate findings. I felt that this field trip would match perfectly with 2-LS4-1. I would use this field trip near the end of my unit, so students could grasp the real life connections and I could somewhat assess their learning of the lessons previously taught for this specific standard. ( I did not see the cost for this field trip listed on the website, so I am led to believe it is a free field trip that Glacier National Park offers.)

Let one of our knowledgeable Garden Guides be your class's guide to the Garden! Garden-guided school group tours are available weekday mornings from September through December, and February through May. Choose our popular 'Discover the Missouri Botanical Garden' tour to introduce your class to the Missouri Botanical Garden, learn its history and see our featured gardens and conservatories. ________ The Botanical Garden offers many field trip opportunities for students of all ages. Field trips include tours of the gardens which include, the Sensational Seed Hunt, Plants from Top to Bottom, Tropical Rain Forest, Foodology, Asian Gardens Tour, Discover the Botanical Garden, and Green is Here for Good. Each field trip is aligned to standards which explore concepts in botany, ecology and natural science. The field trip I am concentrating on is Tropical Rain Forest. During this tour, students are able to explore the rainforest which is named the Climatron at the Botanical Gardens. The tour allows students to view waterfalls, lush lowlands, approximately 1,500 different types of plants, and tropical birds. Since we don't have access to a real rainforest (and most students never will), I think it would be a great idea to allow my students to explore the Climatron. I would take my students to visit this location at the end of our unit on rain forests to make sure they are able to understand the tropics at their fullest! Taking students at the beginning of the unit would be a great way to introduce them to the topic, however, I feel they will have a better grasp and appreciation on the subject after they have already learned about it.

This is a great environmental field trip! I would use this in conjunction with a unit on the environmental impact and/or the various plants/animals present in our local communities. This is a beautiful nature preserve. I chose this resource because I have spent time on this preserve and it is remarkable. You feel like you are in your own little world and there is so many possibilities to explore. Students could be partnered up and sent on a photo scavenger hunt. They would journal their findings and upon returning to school we would discuss the many things they encountered.

This source has a collection of questions and observations students can make while visiting the Botanical Garden. A field trip to the garden is very realistic in the St. Louis area since there is one in the city. The questions could be previewed in class before the day of the trip, so the students are alert and focused on those topics. This is a great lesson to improve the field trip experience and to get students thinking about the fascinating world of plants. Going on a trip like this is great, because many students will not get a chance to see a wide variety of plant life otherwise.

This website is really cool. There is a ton of great information on topics that I think would be interesting for kids of all ages. The images included with the information are awesome.

This site contains activities and projects for students to work on like creating their own space probe or looking at interactive maps. Its full of videos, current events, extra teaching resources and even describes way that everyone can get involved with helping the environment. It's a great interdiciplinary resource that can tie together a broad range of subjects and topics. The webiste resources are free but the magazine subsription does cost money. In addition to the teacher resources link there is also a special page just for young learners that includes music, games, movies, and more.

Online 3D simulation of the Solar System and night sky in real time - the Sun, planets, dwarf planets, comets, stars and constellations ______________________________________________________________________ This website provides a 3D simulation of the Solar System including everything from the plants to comets and stars. Students can use this simulation to learn everything they want to know about the Solar System. This simulation allows students to click on each individual planet to learn more information and also allows students to locate the major stars and constellations found in our solar system. Students can also watch the planets orbit around the sun (in real time) and go to any day of any year to see where each planet was at that time. All for free! I selected this resource because I think it will really benefit visual and hands-on learners. Giving students the opportunity to research the Solar System on their own gives them a feeling of independence, even while they are learning. I think this resource is very valuable in the classroom because it provides a lot of information about everything there is in the Solar System. This resource could be used during a lesson about the Solar System. Students could each be given an individual planet, star, or constellation to research, and students could create a poster with information on their individual planet, star, or constellation. This resource would benefit in their researching.

This resource is a lesson plan to help students understand animal diversity. I selected this resource because it gives the lesson plan and it also gives you ideas on how to extend the lesson into future lessons. I would use this lesson during my lesson segment on plant and animal biodiversity to get the students thinking about animal diversity.

This resource provides outstanding animations for a variety of biology topics including; cellular respiration, mitosis and cellular organelles. These multimedia animations come with audio enhanced explanations that support students comprehension. I selected this resource for its clear illustrations of multiple biological concepts offered in a very compact and easy to follow format. These animations would augment introductory as well as follow on lessons in the topics listed.

Great animations for inclusion in lecture presentations for clarification of concepts or review.

This resource provides a basic format for illustrating the Scientific Method. It explores the factors that affect seed germination. It emphasizes the brainstorming function and lays out an experimental design for students to follow. Students can make predictions and explain their rationale. A sample experimental design guide is included. This is a very important tool to assist students seeking to answer questions through experimentation.

This is a super simple science experiment for the classroom, involving how seeds grow. It does not take much preparation, and it will not take much time doing the experiment in the classroom. Despite the little time going into the setup of the experiment, students will be able to observe their seeds for weeks and record their data. I would most definitely consider using this in the classroom. It doesn't take much prep, it's not very costly, and the unit could last several weeks. In addition, this experiment is perfect for getting the students to think scientifically, and learning to record observations.

This resource is game the students can play that helps them identify the food chain and what animals hunt others. I think this resource would be used as a good extra activity for if the students finish an activity early. This is a great introduction to the food chain to let the students guess and explore what they already know. They could journal after about what they found and if they were wrong or if they were right and characteristics about the animals.

This game shows different living organisms that can be in the food chain and can be a fun way to add upon your lesson concerning food chains.

In this activity, students are shown a picture of wildlife and are asked to click on eight living things. Students can click on animals or plants. I chose this activity because younger students could use this as a starting point when learning about wildlife. I envision this being used in the lower grades as a beginning activity.

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.

This link is to a lesson that helps students understand photosynthesis by engaging in dramatic arts. It also helps students understand the relationship between photosynthesis and decomposers. I chose this lesson because I think it is very creative. I like the idea of having dramatic arts in a classroom, and I think it would be a good way for visual and bodily-kinesthetic learners to remember the material. I would use this resource when discussing photosynthesis in an upper elementary classroom. The lesson allows for the process to take place over a week.

This page of experiment and projects has a bit more than the previous one I posted. It also has them for older ages. There are pictures of them completed with all of the work that went into them directly from the students. It is great!

There are five large oceans on Earth: the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian, the Arctic and the Southern (or Antarctic) Oceans. They are really one 'world ocean' a continuous expanse of water with the continents of the world like big islands of land in this. This is a perfect website to have as a resource when teaching about the oceans and seas. The website is packed with very rich information and great visuals over ocean currents, layers, and waves! Besides talking about the usual oceans topics like ocean life or level of the ocean floor, it covers topics that are less discussed in the classroom. Example from the website includes mapping the ocean floor, threats to oceans, and even fisheries. Another great feature about this website is that it includes an experience over ocean currents. Overall, the website can defiantly be a great source to add to the curriculum! Ways to implement this website into the classroom would be by doing the ocean current experiment with the class. Also, I know that the ocean is still one of the main mysteries to scientist to this day, so I think there is plenty of opportunities for students to use their creative minds. Examples of projects would be have students create what they think animals and plants look like that are undiscovered. The topic of oceans and seas is very broad and fascinating!

Remove "science" tag and re-tag as "earth science" to be more specific. Is this a lesson, activity, background information, field trip, etc.? Tag accordingly.

This website contains activities for all grade levels and covers many different topics including how new medicines are found in the ocean, climate/weather, lesson sets addressing ocean littering/pollution, make your own weather station, and more. It includes basic fact sheets or interactive projects and games for students to work on. NOAA also heads up a Teach at Sea program where kindergarden through college educators can spend a given amount of time on a boat with scientists, researchers, and the boating crew to gain new experiences about human impact on the ocean, marine life, weather, etc and bring that new knowledge back to the classroom. I have also included a link to the Teach At Sea Program below. http://teacheratsea.noaa.gov/