Thank you Colin Johnson, 4th grade, Bahia Vista: " I learned about the Speedometry program from an offer included in my Scholastic News. I have received the FREE classroom kit and have used the materials to experiment with the slope of ramps, and ask questions and predict outcomes about the changes in energy that occur when objects collide. Additionally my students measured distances and converted between different units. For instance meters to cm and/or mm. The downloadable curriculum from the University of Southern California’s School of Education is detailed and comprehensive. My students were excited to use the Hot Wheels which resulted in them taking a while to settle down before focusing on the activity, but the end result was very good." Speedometry™ is a free-to-use curriculum targeting fourth grade (8-9 year old) students. Comprised of two units with up to six lessons per unit, Speedometry™ provides coursework intended to cover a period of 10-12 days. Students work in collaborative learning groups to deepen their understanding of speed, angles, slopes, collisions, kinetic energy, and potential energy. The lessons and activities aim to put students on course for success in science and mathematics 4th graders in iTEAMS classrooms will be working on a gravity car design challenge this Spring using the Sonoma Raceway Race Car Challenge curriculum. Included below are links to videos used by various 4th grade teachers. Lesson 1: 4th graders at San Pedro School... parachutes! To introduce the concepts and vocabulary of gravity and air resistance or drag. Other resources
Lesson 2: The students looked at how toy cars, balls, and marbles roll on different surfaces and inclines. What made a difference? How much the incline? How much the car weighed? What types of surfaces worked better? The students used surfaces around the playground (slides, blacktop, inclined cement surfaces, grass, inclined grass, flat cement, etc) to test out their theories. Discussion about friction and aerodynamics followed. Lesson 3: Aerodynamics and drag. Students did a close reading with the passages from Sonoma Raceway. The took a field trip to the parking lot to discover cars that were more and less aerodynamic. They drew pictures of the most aerodynamic cars and included airflow with arrows. Lesson 4: Since the class is still collecting materials for their cars, a lesson was needed to "fill in." This lesson was a perfect fit. It gave the students an opprotunity to design and re-deisgn on a smaller scale and learn more about cars and another aspect that effects their movement: wheels. (This came from the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) free resource "Go Green! Recycled Racers"). Lesson 5: Building a racer. The students created a racer from a set of directions. This gave them the a certain understanding of some of the things they need to consider when they build their own car. It helps to give some common ground for all students to start with. Build their OWN racers! Students use all they have learned in the previous lesson to build, test, redesign, build, test, redesign until race day. Picture below are from Manor School and San Pedro.
Design Day Mary E. Silveira with Gina Tanner and Ed Malaret More pictures form Manor School in Ross Valley with Mary Accord as they build and test! Building Day at Wade Thomas in Ross Valley with Jenny Cavanna's class! Race Day at Ross Valley Schools! 4th grade students from three elementary schools, Wade Thomas, Brookside, and Manor, come together for a final race! Wade Thomas come out as champions! Molly O'Donoghue used another unit to start of her racers, "I started off my racers unit with a simple design challenge to build a mover that could carry a match box 5 feet. Groups had to work together."
Thank you Tom Kiehfuss, 5th grade, San Pedro: "I have found this website from Sonoma County Water Agency very helpful in supporting the iTEAMS water theme this year. The students and I have done the drip sculpture activity and this week we will be building a solar water purifier and learning how to use our water testing kit. We will test and record salinity levels of water from the bay before we put it in our solar water purifier and then we will test the purified water once it’s gone through the purification process. We will also be using this data to share and compare with our science pen pals in Louisiana."
Focus:
Understand water seeping through porous rock and cracks carries dissolved minerals. As the water drips from the ceiling of a cave, some of it evaporates and leaves behind a mineral deposit in the form of a stalactite. Water that drips onto the floor of a cave also evaporates, and this mineral deposit forms a stalagmite. Stalagmites and stalactites grow very slowly; this activity allows students to witness model formations over the course of just a few day Challenge: Can you create stalactite and stalagmite formations in a much shorter time? Thanks Lindsay Hess, Wade Thomas: " ... they came and did an in-class presentation on stomp rockets. The kids loved it! (K-5th grade)" Modeled after our experiential camp learning environments, EDMO360’s In Class Programs (ICPs) help thousands of elementary and middle school teachers bring hands-on science, maker or technology programs to their classrooms. Each 45 minute or 1 hour hands-on presentation is designed by EDMO360, in partnership with top Bay Area museums, to elicit looks of awe and wonder so kids want to learn more. I know many teachers who are using these lessons to supplement their science. These units are geared fro 2-6 grade. Lindsay Hess, Wade Thomas, is among them and sent me the link. Many of you might have gotten the email at the beginning of the school year that offered them for free if you gave them 5 email addresses. It looks like they will be charging to use these next school year. Check them out to see if it would be worth your school and/or district to purchase. Mystery Science provides open-and-go lessons that inspire kids to love science. Our online resource makes it easy for elementary school teachers to deliver an incredible science lesson without a science background. Rather than a textbook approach to science vocabulary, hands-on activities engage students with the mysteries of science and expose them to the joy of scientific inquiry at an early age. Lessons are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and support Common Core with the reading extensions. This is a great list of resources from EIE (Engineering is Elementary). Thanks Lindsay Hess, Wade Thomas, for sending this to share!
Thanks to Eddie Gutierrez for this wonderful resource: "The one (workshop) we paid for had to do with the moon and sun. It is a great way to introduce the introduce the solar system. My students were really engaged throughout the presentation put on by Chabot. They even brought a portable planetarium that made my students excited. There are different classes that they offer so it's not just limited to the moon and sun."
There is so much on this website to explore! There are workshops, lesson plans, videos, and materials. Below are some of my favorite. Some have been shared before and some are new!
4th graders at Laurel Dell stake out their "claim" with a blue flag and record their observations of nature with words, pictures, and tally marks. They will observe the same "claim" over a period of time to see the changes that occur. Thanks Molly O'Donoghue for sharing!
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February 2017
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iTEAMS is a professional development research project designed to provide teachers with support to deepen their content knowledge and pedagogy to promote STEM education aligned to the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
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