Resources for Teaching Science

This is a video resource that I found on Youtube. The many different types of structures and architectural pieces can help students relate more to engineering by showing them structures that they might pass by daily. However, there are also more historical pieces of architecture to allow students to explore just what engineering can create. With all of the historical background, this is also a great way to show connections between science and another area of study. I would use this as an opener to show my students all the different ways in which engineers solved problems for themselves and for society. My science standard is all about students being able to come up with their own solutions to problems and this is a great starting point for that.

This resource contains an insect activity that must be downloaded. Once downloaded, the PDF includes a chart with two columns (insect, not an insect). There is also a page of 14 animals that can be colored, cut, and pasted into the two columns. This resource also contains a follow up worksheet about insects. I selected this resource because I feel like it is an engaging activity for the lower elementary grades. I can see myself using this as a science center activity some day in my future classroom.

This resource contains instructions on how to bend water. The object is to bend the water by using static electricity. The materials needed are a plastic comb or inflated balloon, a narrow steam of water from a faucet, and dry hair. I selected this resource because I believe the lower elementary grades would really enjoy the experiment. Someday, I would love to teach kindergarten and I can see myself making a lesson out of this resource.

This resource is a lesson segment that can be used to introduce biodiversity and also teach the students what biodiversity is. I selected this resource because it will give me an idea on what to teach my 2nd grade classroom when it comes to biodiversity. I would use this resource as a tool to help me in making my lesson plans for my lesson segment on biodiversity.

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 is all about plant and animal biodiversity. I selected this resource because it shows all of the different habitat types and gives examples of plants and animals that live in that environment. I would use this resource while preparing my lessons on this topic because it gives pictures of some of the different habitat types and animals that inhabit those habitats.

This is the St. Louis Zoo's website. It contains all the events it holds along with information about some of the animals. I chose this website as a source for a field trip. It is a good place to take students to because it is fun, but they are also learning about animals. I would take my students to the zoo after the lesson on food chains. They would have knowledge about what animals eat in terms of other animals. I would have them create their own food chains on the animals they saw at the zoo.

This is a resource for a field trip to the St. Louis Zoo. I selected this resource because it fit right in to my standard, 2-LS4-1 because the students will be able to make observations about the plants and animals that they see at the zoo as well as make observations about the types of habitats that the animals are in. I would use this resource to take my students on a field trip to the zoo to show them all of the different types of animals and most of the different types of plants.

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 resource categorizes and separates all of the types of habitats (arctic, rainforest, desert, salt water, etc.) and has sections you can click on to find out plants and animals that live in which categories. I really like that there are sections where you can find out how plants/animals survive in each type of habitat, as well as interesting facts about that specific habitat. This is a website that each student could go to and simply explore as an add on to a lesson. I selected this source because it aligns with 2-LS4-1.

This resource is a lesson for 2nd grade, rainforest diversity. I specifically wanted to show step 2: Literature and Discuss. This step uses a children's book activity to engage students in the various elements of a rainforest habitat. I selected this resource because it shows an excellent activity that I can use with 2-LS4-1. I really like that this focuses on the rainforest and could be used to compare/contrast with other types of habitats such as deserts and oceans.

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.)

This is a lesson plan resource that covers the explanation of simple machines and a couple activities in which students create their own simple or complex machines. The lesson plan also lists some great books and activity pieces to buy that would go great along with each of the lesson sections and also lists a few ideas for homework materials. The only ones that were working correctly were #3 to see the design of a lapbook and #5 to see simple machine coloring pages. Also note that choice #6 under Homework Ideas does cost money. I personally loved the ideas for creating simple and complex machines. It would be a chance for students to work together on creating a solution (3-5-ETS1-2). This would be a great way to breakdown the learning of simple machines into easy pieces that can be organized and taught well.

This resource is a youtube video that discusses the various types of plant habitats and adaptations. It is 8 minutes and 19 seconds long. The speaker in this video does have an accent which may distract the children but I feel that the information covered in this video ties in perfectly with my standard 2-LS4-1. This video talks about several plant habitats and has excellent pictures. I would use this to introduce the plant section dealing with diversity of habitats.

This is the resource I have chosen as a science field trip. After looking over some of the different choices for demonstrations I think that the "Science Goes Splat" would be the best choice for my students. It's a chance for them to help in making predictions and observations about a problem that the whole group is facing which goes along with my standard (3-5-ETS1-2) in that the students are coming up with ideas about what may happen within the constraints of the demonstration. This is also a great way for them to see an exercise in gravity that we may not be able to do in the classroom

This resource is a lesson plan that can be modified and used for either 2nd or 3rd grade about sea turtles. There are listed activities that can be used if you would like to draw out the lesson into a multiple day unit. It has three main activities dealing with this lesson which will help students understand the life cycle of sea turtles, their environments, how sea turtles differ from regular turtles, and sea turtle hatchlings. This resource deals with animal habitat diversity, which correlates to my standard 2-LS4-1. I would use one of the extensions out of this resource which would have the class create a fun facts poster after the lesson, which lists fun facts about a sea turtle's environment.

While I didn't really understand what this lesson was trying to accomplish, it did help me come up with a great idea to connect a science lesson to "The Three Little Pigs." After we read the story, my class could discuss different types of houses that they could build, from material to shape/size. This would be a great activity to think of how the pigs could have stayed safe from the Big Bad Wolf from the beginning.

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 lesson actually contains quite a few good activities and gives a good chance to give lesson segments a try. It gives students a great chance to realize how powerful the sun actually is and how using solar panels can fix situations like flooding and the way that water is flowing. There is also fun options that involve melting crayons and sunscreen to show the impact that the sun has on our earth.

This is another example, kind of like the other Simple Machines lesson that I posted earlier, where you get the kids involved in making their own simple machines. While the other lesson only allowed them to use their bodies to make replicas of the simple machines, this allows them to use different materials from around the classroom the create their machines.

While this isn't necessarily students making a new or improved tool, it does have them discussing the changes that technology and communication has gone through during time. It discusses what different ways you can communicate with people, like computers and phones, that you know, but also preaches safety of communicating with people that you cannot psychically see to the students.