I'm obsessing about how much water it takes to make cheese.

Wow. I certainly did not go into Tuesday night's learning experience at Bonnie's house with any expectation about it impacting the rest of my week so intensely. I keep picturing those blue cylinders of water, specifically the blue cylinder which illustrated the amount of water on earth for human and animal consumption. Crazy, y'all! It's funny, the exercise where we traced our foot resonated the least with me while we were working, but I've been obsessing over my "water footprint" since we left Tuesday night!

I'm already considering the ways in which I will be able to incorporate the information from our new textbook into my own classroom. Honestly, I think there are so many ways these concepts can bleed past my Science teachings into English, Math and Art. I love the idea of teaching these invaluable Human-centered concepts in a blended way so that my kids don't even realize the scope of their learning #sneakyteaching . There is nothing more important to me as an educator than helping children to become conscientious of their actions and how those actions affect everyone and everything they touch. It makes me think of a portion of one of favorite quotes, "... as no cause remains without its due effect from greatest to least, from a cosmic disturbance down to the motion of your hand, like produces like..." 

Seriously though, I can't give up cheese. 

It's Electric!

I am having a hair-raising time trying to whittle down all of the ideas that are bouncing around in my head for my science fair topic. I mean, what did I think was a cool in elementary school? For a few days I was dead set on doing a project on organic versus non-organic bananas and their rate of decay, but then I realized that 8 year olds are most likely not that interested in brown bananas or whether or not they cost .30 more a pound. Then it struck me, I actually already wrote about an excellent science fair topic in my first blog post, the old rub-a-balloon-on-your-head-so-you-look-like-the-bride-of-frankenstein-trick. Static electricity is SO COOL, and with a little help from the googles I've explored so many different spoooooky ways you can explain how electricity of the static nature works, like making a mini ghost or mummy dance with the help of a balloon. I'm super excited to work on my project in reverse and teach a lesson in the mean time, which is a first for me in the world of science experimentation. I've never gotten to impart how neat I think science is on little people, and I'm excited to use the same methodology I will teach upon and expect from my future students to arrive at what I already know to be true.

Making Connections: The Graduate Experience

Hey Folks!

I'm sitting at my dining room table with stacks of books and papers around me dwelling on assignments that seem to be multiplying like gremlins. This is what graduate school is supposed to be like, right? In any life transition it takes time to acclimate, and there's usually a turning point in that acclimation period where you remember why you started the crazy ride you hopped on. I seem to be coming around that bend, and as fate may have it, this realization happened while I was simultaneously doing work for Teaching Science and my Assessment class. I FINALLY CONNECTED CONCEPTS FROM TWO CLASSES WHICH MADE SENSE TOGETHER... This week's science reading was focused on Foundational Knowledge and Conceptual Change, and I was assigned a unit on Formative Assessment to teach my other class. Guess what, guys? They're about the same teaching style! ::woo hoo! bells! whistles! happy dance!:: And its a teaching style that really excites me.

If we, as teachers, are setting out to really structure little brains then we must teach those brains accountability, responsibility and useful concepts. The reading booklet for my assessment class offered some really helpful teaching tactics. Like, allowing students to utilize red, yellow and green cards in an effort to communicate their current understanding of a lecture-style lesson, which allows a teacher to adjust their teaching angle in the moment. The information that struck me the most in the two readings however was that deciding upon a few useful curricular targets and defining a few, definite learning pillars to reach that curricular target is infinitely more effective than setting many different small goals and knocking those out in a more traditional teach - study- test scenario. While, both readings do emphasize that this teaching style takes a lot more preparation and active participation they both clearly note that these foundational assessment tactics actually set up students for le real world!

Here's a picture of my planner!

Science is Everywhere: The Nature of Science

It's very interesting that after so many years outside of a science classroom, a few visits back to one can remind us of a passion that seemed long forgotten...

In our first class meeting Dr. Kat told us that, as a scientist herself, she collects data about humans before she comes to conclusions about them. She also requested that as a class we molest a piece of bread. In this class, I came to the conclusion that Dr. Kat is not only a scientist; she is a funny scientist. And really, science IS funny. It's a series of trial and error, of drunken old men tying keys to kites and of six year olds at birthday parties rubbing balloons on their heads. Science is a community of people not only asking WHY, but taking the next step to figure out WHY, which is invaluable to our future students. If you can teach a child to not only recognize a problem but attempt to solve it, you've given that child a real tool that they need to survive and more importantly, to succeed.

Let's talk shop. I really love the hands on time with science experiments. Our second class experiment had us elbow deep in Dino bones and differing opinions. As an owner of the original VHS of Jurassic Park, I was clearly a force to be reckoned with... Or not, because I legitimately thought we had an alligator with a six foot long neck on our hands. This personal belief led to a very interesting collaborative experience with my fellow science mates, because Christina was certain she had met this Dino before, April's fierce intuition was certain he could fly and Jeremy II was just as in the dark as I was, meaning, we were sure that some of the bones formed legs which probably were attached to the torso. With each new cue from Dr. Kat we had to observe our new discoveries, infer what they meant to us and creatively decide how they fit into our puzzle. That's some powerful stuff, y'all! After a visit to the other team's laboratory, we learned a bit more about the pelvic bone, but our results were still inconclusive. As I mentioned before, April knew our little buddy was of the avian variety. So, when we presented our hypothesis to our adjacent team at the science conference we told them that he was ready for lift off, and wouldn't you know, HE REALLY DID FLY. Vini Vidi Vici.

Here is a drawing of a happy spider with 7 legs:

Hear ye! Hear ye! Is this thing on?

Hey Everyone

Welcome to my brain! This is my first foray into the world of blogging thanks to Dr. Kat, and if it proves to be as fun as choosing my background photo was, I'm in for a treat. I feel scientifically whimsical and nostalgic as I ponder my MySpace HTML days.

oh, Hey Tom...