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I found this and thought it would pair well with the Clouds in Jars I posted earlier. Both these activities could be used as part of a center day during a unit about weather. This page includes two experiments on how to create lightning. The first one sounds kind of involved and from what I read it did not have great results. I would probably used the second one. All the students would need would be a balloon and a metal spoon and, depending on the age of the students, they would only need minimal supervision. The students would be creating static electricity by rubbing the balloon on their hair and then touching the spoon to the balloon. This is really cool and really simple. This could also serve as a filler activity on a day when you need something quick to fill up some time. I could also see this activity being used during a unit on electricity as well. I would probably use this activity with students between kindergarten and third grade.

Once you figure out how to use this app it is incredible. The technology in this app allows you to see a functioning heart and human body in 4D. You can highlight different organ systems: skeleton, muscular or respiratory and see how they work. This app is super interactive and allows students to explore the human anatomy in real life spacial relationships. This app would be great to use as an engagement tool to have students explore the heart or human body in 4D then write down things that they see but aren't sure what they are or how they work.

In this lesson you go over 6 different habitats in the world. The list contains grasslands (or savanna), temperate forest, tropical rain forest, desert, polar ice, tidepools. You separate your class into six groups and assign each group a habitat. Each habitat has its own assigned question that the students need to find the answer to through research of their habitat using a computer. For example the grassland group has to explain why speed is such a good thing for animals who live there, while the temperate forests are going to explain what tree leaves have to do with frozen water available in their climate. When the assignment is done students have to present their work to the class and teach each other what they learned through their own research. The lesson is basically about adaptations and how they come in handy in certain parts of the world but not others. This link also has web links embedded in it to help students look for their answers. I think this is great for a unit on adaptations and habitats. I would have loved to do this in my upper elementary classes. i feel like i would have learned and remembered so much more. It definitely fosters more constructive learning. I don't tell you about adaptations and then ask questions, you are sent to find the info on your own.

This WebQuest teaches the states of matter through the use of research, activities, music, and games. The site allows chances to go back and forth between tasks, and is very user friendly and easy to navigate. The students will examine solids, liquids, and gasses in an interactive and fun way that will keep them focused. I like this webquest because it allows the students to learn about the states of matter in multiple different ways. This gives each student a chance to excel at some part of the program, and makes it fun for everyone. I enjoy how many different pieces there is to the site, and it has tons of useful information that is shown in an interactive way. The students also get the chance to use technology independently and are able to do some research. I would introduce this web quest after an introduction day to the stages of matter, and have the class work on a few tasks each day to keep them motivated and wanting to keep going.

The Touch of Nature environmental program offers both land-based activities and water-based activities for students. The best way to experience Touch of Nature is to spend three-five days in their camp program. Students are set up in cabins for the night while during the day they can go on field trips to the local lake, ponds, or night trips looking for owls. This extended field trip is more specified to students grades 6 to 12. It gives students the opportunity to learn about their surrounding environment and how they can use ways to conserve it. "Your Touch of Nature experience can be designed to supplement and enrich classroom curricula or enhance youth group experiences. With nature as your classroom, it can provide insight to groups of all ages and backgrounds. You are encouraged to request a program that serves your specific needs (SIU Touch of Nature)

"Shadow puppets offer a great way of investigate light and shadows. It also links to literacy, storytelling and design technology. Try out this cross-curricular activity." This activity is a great way to demonstrate to students how light travels as a wave, showing them that when you put a shadow puppet in between the lamp and the wall, the puppet blocks some of the light waves. For this activity, I would have sample shadow puppets made along with a script to go with the characters. I would allow volunteers to work the shadow puppets as I read the script aloud. To boost the creativity of this activity, I would allow students to create shadow puppets of their choice. I think this would serve as a great extension activity to a lesson about light and shadows especially because it gets students engaged as it requires their involvement. To make sure students fully understand and grasp the relationship between the light and the shadow puppets, I would make sure that each student has a chance to use their shadow puppet on the "stage."

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.

Students will learn about weather by taking walks in various types conditions: sunny, rainy, windy and snowy. On nice days the students can walk around and explore outside of the school, and on the not so nice days the class can participate under an overhang or by simply looking out the window. This teaches students how to identify seasons and weather change over a lengthy time period. I chose this lesson because I know kindergarteners love nothing more than to get up and move around, and what better way to do that than to learn at the same time. I like how the activity can be spanned throughout the entire school year and would give the class a steady routine and plan to look forward to. I would put this weather activity into part of the morning meetings to start everyone's day off on a fun educational note that they can use every morning at home with their parents also.

This resource shows a video of a women performing a song by using test tubes filled with water to create different pitches. It demonstrates the use of sound and vibrations. It tells you all the materials that you will need, what to do, and what will happen. It also gives you ideas for further activity if you have more time in the class. I chose this resource because I did an activity similar to this in my Methods of Fine Arts class but we used mason jars instead of test tubes, which I believe would be more safe for younger students. Also, the water in each mason jar was a different color and each jar was labeled 1-8. This made it easier when we played a song with the jars. I think this activity would be very fun for students to do because I really enjoyed doing it. You don't have to necessarily follow this lesson plan; you can tweak it to how you want. I would use this resource after teaching my students about vibrations and talking about how sounds change when water levels are different. It goes along with my standard 1-PS4-1: plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make a sound and that sound can make materials vibrate.

This is a fun activity that includes math, science, and fine art. I envisioned using this as a fun filler activity maybe on a Friday afternoon or on a half day of school. I would provide the children with several bags of M&Ms. I would ask them to try and predict how many of each color M&M would be in their bag. They would then divide the colors up into different containers. Students would then be asked which containers held the most M&Ms. You could also ask the students to count out how many of each color and then graph the results as well depending on the grade level. After discussing the data they found, we would then add water to the M&Ms. I would ask the students to predict what would happen to the M&Ms when the water was added. I would jot down the predictions on the board and revisit them after the experiment to see if we came to the right conclusions. Once the M&Ms have mixed with the water and created the paint like effect I would let the students have some painting time. I feel this could be used from kindergarten up through second grade.

This lesson allows students to investigate which way is best to clean up oil and researching how oil spills affect the environment. The students will try three different ways to remove oil from a tub of water, then they will determine which way is the most effective. Afterwards, the students will present their findings to the class. I like that this lesson is engaging and it can easily be related to real world oil spills. I would tell my students that they were a team that was hired to find out how to get rid of the oil after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This way the students feel that they are doing something realistic.

Free streaming video that shows the actual fossils from an ancient sea in the middle of Indiana. Put the mouse on highlighted sections of the rocks and a depiction of the fossil comes to life along with a brief summarization of what kind of fossil it is and how it lived. I really liked this program because it shows how different our world was millions of years ago, and the fact that the program animates whichever fossil you choose, brings the past to life. It would be a great resource to use when teaching biological evolution (3-LS4).

This lesson helps the students understand and explore what technology is and how it's so much more than "computers." It will also give them the chance to study the history throughout America's past time. I think this lesson would be awesome to have a history tie-in simply because they can possibly make a timeline as a class, each student receiving an item and having to research the inventor and how it changed how people operated certain things. i.e. light bulb, electricity, cars, computers, phones, etc. They will use computers and tablets for their research. This way they're using technology to learn about technology.

Here's a great Science lesson for students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. This lesson helps students learn about magnets. Storytelling, journaling and teaching from the heart all play a part to make this an effective Science lesson. _____________________________________________________________________ This lesson is taught by Mr. Rutherford. This lesson discusses magnets and allows students to participate in hands-on learning. Students create a journal allowing them to follow what they are learning as well as keep track of the data they are finding. I chose this resource because not only does it give a good idea on an effective science lesson, but it also encourages teachers to be effective as well. I think this lesson is effective because it allows students to become engaged in their own learning. Mr. Rutherford allowed his students to be in charge of their learning, which helps keep all students involved in the lesson. I would definitely teach this lesson in my class. All the students seemed to stay focused on the activity. I would use this lesson to help students learn more about magnetism and how think can effect the magnetism of an object.

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 is a book about sheep who take a drive down the country side in a jeep. There are many mishaps along the way. The jeep slows down at the top of the hill and the sheep jump out to push the jeep down the hill. When the jeep gets to the bottom, it gets stuck in some mud and the sheep have to pull the jeep out. I chose this book because of its introduction to pushes and pulls. Students can observe in an interactive way things that have to be pushed or pulled in real life. I could also ask what other things need to be pushed and pulled while I am reading. Although the idea is free, getting the book would cost money but it is only $6.00. I would use this book as an introduction to my lesson on pushes and pulls. This would be a great way for students to acclimated to the vocabulary and how it is used. I could even make the book more interactive by having students do the motion of pushing and pulling in their seat whenever a push or a pull happens.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, or IUPAC, is a council made up of chemists from countries around the world. They have developed a system of naming elements and compounds. This website offers a variety of links to click on explaining the different rules. This website could provide a useful tool for teachers who need a refresher on some of the rules or for students who need additional clarification. Additionally, the site offers some suggestions about how to make the Chemistry curriculum more relevant to students by providing a more hands-on approach that requires a higher level of thinking and questioning.

This website was uploaded by BPS Elementary Science Exemplars Project. It is a great lesson plan on how to teach first graders to differentiate between living and nonliving things. This would be a great way for me to introduce the lesson plan to my class. I really like how it still has a lot of pictures to match with the words, in case some readers are not as advanced as others. This lesson plan is very kid friendly, and would be engaging for them, because I could also use several objects in the classroom/around the school to ask if it is living or non-living. After the students gave me their answer, I would then go into characteristics of each living or non-living thing.

This resource is a Bill Nye video which talks about biodiversity dealing with both plants and animals. The video is 22 minutes and 58 seconds long. Bill Nye investigates and discovers many different plant and animal habitats. He even connects plant and animal habitats and relates them back to one another, showing correlations. I chose this resource because I feel that Bill Nye is perfect for getting students interested and I found the video to be very entertaining, as well as informational. This video would also be a great introduction to a learning segment about observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats (2-LS4). This video does not have a specific age level that it is "meant" for but I felt like it would be great for all ages k-5. You could also just show certain clips to students rather than watching the entire video.

This video shows about how all organisms interact with each other and how they affect each other. He explores different environments and ecosystems. Bill Nye introduces science in a fun way, and he has different experiments that are easy for students to do.

This app could work great for teacher or student-directed learning. It shows the universe in a way that is more engaging that simple, flat pictures. It's a versitile app that can be adapted for a variety of in-class or at-home activities. Students can use it to find out how close planets/contellations are to a given object in space or they can simply pick a planet/constellation they want to learn about and teach the class about it. It could be used as a great introductory or motivational tool. It can also be used as a fun reward for students who finish their work early.