Meeting with the group

After fieldwork, we had regular class time. The rest of the class was very very very stressful. I met with my group, who is presenting on Monday. The two lessons we need to present our direct and inquiry. They need to incorporate certain items and each require different concepts. We asked many questions about what we need to add and some ideas. Meeting with the teacher was very helpful and were able to talk things through and get an opinion about our ideas. As a teacher, you want your lesson to not be boring for your students. We need to incorporate technology and get the students involved in their learning. Today, my group was trying to break down what each of us needs to complete by a certain day. It is so hard to do this when all of us have different schedules, school work on top of school work, full-time jobs and everything else life throws at you. We are all stressed about it and we all feel we hardly have enough time to complete this. 

The picture above is exactly how I feel about this week and the lessons. I know it will all be worth it in the end, but for now, this will be my face! I am going to learn so many new things to use in lessons and how to teach science. 

Getting to know the students

Today at Bishop Dunn, we met some of the students who will be in the after-school science program. We had a small turn out and students kept leaving right before we were about to start. We were left with two boys to complete our getting to know you activity. This activity had to incorporate what they enjoyed about science, what they wanted to know and some engaging activities. My group had the students write their names with markers. They had to use each letter of their name and write a single science word, science topics they were interested in or wanted to learn more about. They had to draw a picture using the letter that went with the word they chose. We would help the students out when they were stumped on words. This really got the students thinking. In the example below, the P= pluto (the student wrote it really small to show that Pluto is small), H= don't remember what he used, I= ice (ice cube), L= lights (shown with a lightbulb), I= gravity and P= prediction. The students enjoyed creating art with science. Also, do not know how to change the picture so you can view it normally... sorry! This can be used for any subject and also as the first day of school activity so you can know more about what your students enjoy, hobbies they may have any other interest. 

The other msmc students in my class came up with many great ideas and I want to use them all! I loved "what am I" which is like the game heads up. Classmates had to guess what science word was taped to your head. You had to ask questions to figure out what you were and the class answered with a yes or no to your questions. They also helped out with characteristics when I was struggling to guess what I was. There were also many other great activities! It is so cool to see what other classmates can come up with! Overall, it was a great first day of fieldwork! 

Unit plan

Learning the Unit Plan

In class, we were given our topic for our unit plan. My groups topic is Heat and Temperature and the Causes (Combustion) - + What can we do --- electric cars, renewable energy, no mow lawns and landscapes, no fires). We were assigned this topic because it was the only topic left, so that made me nervous. After learning a little more about the topic, it seems to be interesting. The thing that makes me even more nervous is having to be the first group to present our lesson and what our unit will be. THIS IS STRESSING ME OUT!!!! I have created lesson plans before, but I have never done a lesson/unit plan to this extent.

In class, we learned about the two types of lessons each group will have to teach. These lessons are direct and inquiry-based. Direct instruction is the use of straightforward, explicit teaching techniques, usually to teach a specific skill to the students. It is a teacher-directed method and the teacher presents the information. An inquiry-based lesson incorporates the 5 E's of inquiry. The 5 E's are: engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate. Inquiry involves the process of learning. In this type of lesson, you want the students to take what they learned and solve a problem or make a solution to the issue. It requires the students to put everything together, ask questions and answer questions. I have never taught or created an inquiry-based lesson. This is a huge learning process since this is all new to me. This is going to take a lot of time to complete, but I know I will feel better about it in the end. We also need to record ourselves for the Edtpa, which will be a whole other blog. I will be excited once I get the two lessons over with and will be able to breathe again! I am glad I have two other classmates to work on this with. It is helpful to have them as reinforcement. I know we will all do well, but I am totally going to stress about it until Monday, October 1st at 6:00pm when it is over.

Study.com and Google classroom

I am familiar with google classroom, especially in the classroom I am in now. The teacher uses google classroom for all assignments for her third-grade students. It is easy to use and assign classwork and students know how to use it very well. When we were assigned view study.com and to take the quiz at the end, I had some difficulties accessing it. Study.com sometimes only let you see half of the video or the lesson transcript. To view the whole lesson and video you need to sign up, but even then you only get the free trial for 5 days. It also is pricey for a teacher to buy this. If the school was providing it then it would be great for the classroom. Other than that flaw, I think study.com is a great website for students to use. They can watch the videos before the lesson to gain knowledge about the topic before it is taught. It can also encourage them to write down questions they may have about it. It is also good to use during a lesson and after the lesson. It can be used by students of all ages. This website reminded me of BrainPOP, but I thought this was a little more informational. The lesson provides great videos and examples. The video I watched was the "Scientific Method Applied to Environmental Problems: Definitions, steps and Applications." The scientific method is very important in science and I have used it throughout my science career. All science begins with making an observation and asking questions. After watching the video which was not long, you are able to take a quiz at the end that is about the lesson you viewed. This is great for students because you can assess the students and see what they may need more help on or a lesson that needs to be taught again and more in-depth. I wish I had resources like this when I was in school that made learning more intriguing and fun. Many topics that can be seen as boring are brought to life by learning via video. This website can be used for all subjects, which is awesome. Technology is important to incorporate into the classroom and I see it in action every day and the students are loving it. The teacher is the only one in the school that uses Chromebooks for every assignment. The use of technology is great for all students and is an effective way to connect with students of all learning styles. 
(Attached is the link to study.com)

https://study.com/

Climate Change: Dr. Edelstein

The Climate Change Reality Project

"We NEED to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and go back to the climate we use to have" -Dr. Edelstein

Dr. Edelstein gave a presentation about climate change and the major effect it has on us and the change it creates every day. Dr. Edelstein said climate change is a direction we cannot turn back from, we are in very far. There are actions we can take to reduce or avoid climate problems. Adaptations are adjustments we need to make to live in a world with all these problems we need to adapt. The atmosphere is a very thin layer on earth. There would not be life on earth without our atmosphere. The earth is a system and everything in science is a system 

Dr. Edelstein talked about a very interesting website called 350.org. 350 means parts per million. We want to stay below 350 parts per million which are the amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are at the tipping point beyond which we may venture and never come back. Today we are well over 400 parts per million way past the tipping point and we cannot reverse it. The link to 350.org               

The video was created by 350.org. Climate Change is a real and serious issue. In this video, explains what causes climate change, how it affects our planet, why we need to act promptly to mitigate its effects, and how each of us can contribute to a solution

There are holes in the north and south poles. That is why people in Australia are always wearing hats since Australia is so close to the south hole in the ozone layer. Good news is that the holes are closing up and going in the right direction by making it much safer. 

There have been agreements signed to reduce climate change by the world. Al Gore tried to enforce climate change to the United States Congress and pushed as an issue to work together to reduce production of CO2. One international agreement is the Paris Agreement which deals with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance. This agreement is important because every country agreed to sign it but then the United States said they will withdraw due to President Trump. All these things tie into issues with science. 

Two important terms we learned about and were told to know as a teacher were: 

• biogeochemical cycles: all the cycles that allow life on earth. We are in the troposphere too much ozone. It is a respiratory poison. Days when O3 is really high, it is not safe to spend a lot of time outside. Children, the elderly and people with respiratory issues should not be outside. This is when the weather app or meterolgist says we have a heat advisory.
• albedo: degree of reflectivity of the earth, if the earth is wearing black it has low albedo and if it has a white shirt it has high albedo. Albedo is high in the poles because of the ice and glaciers. We are sending light back into space. The ocean absorbs heat. 

With our students, we can walk about outside and have your students point out things that have a high or low albedo. This is a good engaging activity to help them learn and remember albedo. 

We are spewing 110 million tons of manmade global warming into the thin shell of the atmosphere every 24hours as if it was an open sewer. Combustion creates heat. When do we burn stuff? All the time we are burning stuff. Coal mining, burning coal, industrial processes, landfill etc. 

Throughout my education, I have learned about climate control but it was just taught briefly and they just told us the issue that causes it. Dr, Edelstein really opened my eyes on the issue and explained in great detail, a detail I have never known. We will all be living through these effects that are happening. Climate change impacts are on their way. Work with current generations about climate change and how to deal with it. Do we really truly know about climate change by what we just learn in school? Can we go back from climate change? Can we go back and pretend there is not a problem?
NO, we cannot. We cannot go back because we cannot put what the Earth has lost back together. We cannot recreate all the ecosystems we lost, sea level rise, glaciers melting. We need to educate our students about how climate change is affecting us every day. They are the voice of our future.

Science Autobiography

Scientific Me!!!


This was my first essay for the class. I was required to reflect and share my school science experiences, what science was like for me and stereotypes about a scientist. Also, we had to include our own definition of science, which I never really thought of until this class. It forced me to look back and think of all the science experiences I have encountered from kindergarten until college. I wrote about what science was like for me. I have had many positive and one negative experience through my science learning career. What does science mean to us and to our students? This is a great way to start the year by asking our students to define it in their own words. My science autobiography discusses what science means to me. Science is the way I would define science is observation, discovery, reasoning, exploration because in science everything is explored and gives an explanation of how certain things work. Science has a wide range of topics. Science is around us every day and new things are being discovered to learn and teach. Science is a big part of our world. My one negative experience really made me not like science and to stop pursuing a career I was so adamant about being. Since I had that experience and forced me to switch majors, it made me find my way to teaching and I LOVE IT!  Overall, science has always been interesting and has come easily to me. My views of science will change throughout the course. When I was sitting in class in high school, I would always think I would never use science again and what is the point of this. But now that I am studying to be a teacher, I need to know much more about science. I need to make sure my future students are engaged. As a substitute teacher, I have to teach about science and the kids look so bored because the teachers are not making the lessons empowered. I know after completing projects and fieldwork in class, my views of science will change tremendously.  I cannot wait to learn to what this class has to offer and all the science material I will learn and use in my future classroom!

Meet my scientist!!

Meet my scientist!


                   An opening day activity in my science methods class was to create what you think a scientist looks like. We were given plain paper and some colored pencils and had 10 minutes to draw. I created my scientist and named him Dr. Acardia. I was struggling to come up with a name and so got the idea from the water I was drinking. When I think of a scientist, I always think of a man, a lab coat, a room with beakers and chemicals and crazy hair. The next part of the activity was to walk around the room to view what other students have created. It was so interesting to see how so many people had similar interpretations and some were so different than the others.  Most people think of a scientist being a crazy-haired, lab coat wearing the man, with a doctorate or professor in front of their names, but this is not true! A scientist can be females and can work in places other than a laboratory with beakers. Everyone can be a scientist! This activity is great for the classroom. Your students are able to get creative and also view other classmates work and give comments on the picture. It is also important that after they complete the activity, that you talk about the stereotypes that people perceive about a scientist. You can show pictures of a scientist working in different environments. I would love to do this activity once I have my own classroom and they can be hung up around the room! This will also get them excited to learn!

I found this picture very interesting! It is an infographic created showing some of the stereotypes that people believe about scientist!