Derek Lecy, 5th grade at Bahia Vista, shared these two links about using drawing in science to help students better internalize their experiences and knowledge.
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Thanks Nate McDonald from White Hill for this video about a great project. "These robots are an inexpensive way to have students complete circuits to make an interactive robot. Using a AA battery, a hobby motor, wires, and a couple markers with a cup, students can make a ScribbleBot. I love this lesson because students can rapidly go through the engineering design cycle to get their ScribbleBot working and to change the way the robot draws." John Flangan's video presentation on weather fronts and cold and warm air. "I turned my weather fronts power point into a video to make it a little more interesting and easier for everyone to use. Just pause the video when discussing the questions presented (they might go by too quickly for some students!). "
Have your students be part of an international event: Global Cardboard Challenge!
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 5th grade at Dixie had the students become birds and did an activity to help them see how different beaks pick up different food. The students collected the data and started to create bar graphs to compare the different beaks with the types of food they are made to eat. 3rd grade from Glenwood did the same beak lesson.
Coleman tests their first iterations of their nests. Bird nest videos from Michelle Giraud, 3rd grade, Sun Valley: "Below you will find 2 videos that support the bird nest lesson. I have shown these and additional ones to my class and they love them. At first, I struggled with when to show it. I decided to show it a few days before they had the chance to actually create their own. Seeing the videos made the idea of creating a nest more realistic and I think they had a better vision than if not seeing it." I attended a NGSS workshop that used the bird beak as a lesson that could encompass many of the concepts in the new standards. I have linked the lesson they used (Lawrence Hall of Science) and took some pictures. They used a variety of "beaks" and a wide variety of "food." They also had an interesting way to graph it at the end. Check out the pictures!
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? |
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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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