Science in the City

Dec 10, 2016

5 Days of Christmas Cheer! And You Are Invited!

sign up at http://eepurl.com/b9nzq1 to get 5 days of science deals next week


These Christmas deals will be only for email subscribers, so if you aren't signed up for the mailing list yet, please sign up!!

There is a subscribe link at the top of the webpage, or you click here so that you don't miss out!

Nov 27, 2016

You Could Win a $10 TpT Gift Card! (and you have 26 chances!!)


Two important opportunities for you

It's coming tomorrow!!  TpT Cyber Monday (and Tuesday) sale, 20% off everything in my store, but plus another 10% off sitewide, bringing everything 28% off!


In honor of this sale, and because I am very thankful for you, my fellow teachers and TpT followers, I I have a $10 TpT gift card to raffle off for use on any of my resources.

This is $10 to use on any resources that you think will help you.

This is a great chance to purchase a new resource that you want to try, or a more expensive resource that would really benefit from the discount.

If you are not a science teacher, or are looking for some resources with broader uses, I would recommend a few of my bestsellers

Tarsia Puzzle Template Set #GiveBackFriday   or 50 Exit Tickets (Formative Assessment)

If you are a science teacher, then I would really recommend that you use this opportunity to take advantage of some of my bigger money saving bundles, which are discounted even more deeply for this sale. You can really get a phenomenal deal.  Here are a few suggestions: 

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Unit Pack   Biology Formative Assessment Full Year:Google #GiveBackFriday  Human Body Systems Bundle

Or even a "Buy My Store" growing bundle - where you have access to all items of that subject area, and any future items in that subject

Buy my Store - Biology   Buy my Store - Earth Science 

Enter below, and then click on the graphic at the bottom for many more chances to win gift cards and prizes at other websites.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Angela Congrove Willyerd's photo.

Nov 23, 2016

Full Year Formative Assessment Bundle: Many Options For You!!

Formative Assessment tools in the high school biology classroom

The Importance of Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is a very important topic to me.  When we are up at the front of the room teaching, it become easy for both us, and our students, to think that they understand what we are trying to teach.  Then nod and say they understand, and we believe them. No one is being deceptive, but its hard to determine.  

I think it is critical to use formative assessment very frequently.  That may be assessments of prior knowledge when starting a topic, or an assessment during or at the end of a lesson.  I have written before several times about formative assessment, in terms of warm ups, bell work, tickets out, or even station work that reviews and assesses knowledge on a few lessons at a time.  You can read those earlier posts  here, or here :) I think the particular way in that you choose to do formative assessment depends on your classroom routines and structure, but it is SOO important, for both yourselves and your students to have frequent checks on their understanding.

Grading Formative Assessment

When my school started using chromebooks, I made my daily warm ups in Google Forms.  I wrote here, about how I was able to grade work efficiently.  Whether you grade formative assessment for completion or only for effort is a topic for a whole other post (or several).  In my district, I found that students were less likely to complete it and take it seriously if it wasn't graded, but I never gave less than half credit unless refused to do it.

So How Can I Make This Easier For You? 

Does it seem like a lot of work to make up formative assessment questions on an almost daily basis?  It is!  But the good news is, the work is done for you.   I have created a year long bundle of formative assessments.  These are available in a large bundle of 10 units, 18 assessments each, and a bonus pack, or individually.  Here are a few points of information: 
  • The units are correlated to my year long Biology Course Objectives, to ensure that all objectives are addressed.
  • Each slide or form has 2-5 brief questions that should take students approximately 3-8 minutes to complete.
  • Each unit is available in Google Forms, Google Slides (to be projected or used as digital task cards), and PDF
The full preview and description is here



Because of all the options available, the teacher (you) has a lot of easy options for differentiation.  

I hope these are a helpful to you as you work with your students. Please feel free to email me with any comments or suggestions, or to comment below.  I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

Nov 14, 2016

How to Use the 5E's for Comprehension of Ecological Succession


Strategies for Teaching Ecological Succession

How I use the 5E's model to teach Ecological Succession, includes helpful resources

I was asked to write about how I teach ecological succession.  Ecological succession is a simple topic, but for some reason students have a difficult time sometimes with the finer points, or remembering the vocabulary. 

Let's start at the beginning

What is succession?  

It is defined as "the progressive replacement of one community by another until a climax community is established." (dictionary.com).  In terms of science, it refers to barren land, which has never had life, or land where the life has been wiped out, gradually developing an ecosystem, until there is a stable ecosystem in that place (climax community).

So how do I teach it? 

In general, I believe it using the 5E's model.  This is a small topic, so I might only spend 1-2 class periods on ecological succession, but I still follow that basic model.

It is helpful when planning to think about where students are likely to get stuck.  In my experience, students get stuck on the difference between primary and secondary succession.   Students also get stuck on the term 'succession;' they can't come up with the term, or even select it on multiple choice. 

The 5E's Model: Ecological Succession

If you aren't familiar with the 5E's model, a good basic summary of the steps is here.  Below I will give an example of how each step could be applied to teaching about ecological succession, even on a short time frame.

Nov 4, 2016

Top 5 Awesome Websites for Science Animations


Best Websites for Virtual Science Labs

Science class is a great place for hands-on activities, but there are some activities that you can't do hands-on.  Its great to be able to at least give students some experience with those activities in a virtual environment, as opposed to just lecture. There are many alternatives for doing online 'virtual labs.'  Here are a few of my favorites.

Advantages of Virtual Labs

There are advantages to doing a virtual lab.  Sometimes you don't have the materials, space, resources/weather etc to do a particular activity in class.  There might be something that needs a high powered microscope, or a topic that has to be done outside that you can't carry out during class time. Some topics just CAN'T be hands-on.  There are some great visualizations to understand and model things that are too small, or too abstract to do hands-on.  They have to be done through a model.  Sometimes a model is preferable because students can test different variables, repeat it, and pause/slow down/speed up at their own pace.  Maybe a student missed class, or needs an extension or extra credit, or an additional project on a certain topic.  

Hands-on is great, but there are lots of good reasons to use a virtual lab as well.

Just to be clear, these are not just game sites, or simple animations, but actual online labs.  Most have questions or activities that go with them, and they are really designed to help students work on higher level topics.  

Here are a few of my favorites... 

Oct 16, 2016

Had Enough Take Out? Easy Ways to Eat Real Food

I don't know about you, but as a teacher, one of the last things that I want to do at the end of the day is make a complicated meal.  This is especially true when I have papers to grade and my own children are getting older and having after school sports and after school activities.


Despite how I feel at the end of the day, or during my 15 minutes that I have to sit down and eat, I really do believe in eating healthy, and eating real food.  It doesn't have to be complicated food, but real food.  As I may have mentioned before, my son has several food allergies.  That makes ordering pizza or take out not a good option. We have to get dinner on the table.  And because of him, I read the label of every food food that I eat.  The more that I read food labels, the more important I think it is to eat real food.  Reading ingredients leads to some kind of scary discoveries!! 

I have been a follower of the 100 Days of Real Food blog and Facebook page for a long time, and I am very excited to share my early PRE-RELEASE copy of the book with you!  

This cookbook seems like it was made for people like me (and you if you want easy, kid-friendly, real food ideas!  Busy teachers who still want to get a relatively, healthy, real food meal on the table quickly!  Busy teachers who have to eat meals on the run and pack lunches, but are looking for some new ideas!


You can still eat well, even when you are exhausted and have 15 minutes to each lunch

This book features a bunch of quick and easy recipes, most of which are not shown anywhere else (such as on her website).  There ideas for dinners, snacks, breakfasts, and lunches.  Its written by a mom, who knows what it is like to try to make lunches, get kids out of the house, and still eat well.  On top of that, many of the recipes are allergy friendly, and are marked as such.  

We are enjoying some of her recipes for dinner today.  It's a fall Sunday.  I am doing laundry and grading papers, but we will be enjoying a great fall dinner. We are having White Chicken Chili, with a loaf of bread (easily purchased), and these Cinnamon Glazed Bananas for desert.  My kids are excited because they are getting desert. I'm excited because it is sweet, but not as bad as a lot of deserts.  And I'm hoping there is extra chili for my lunch tomorrow.  



Cinnamon Glazed Bananas - easy real food desert
Click on photo for the sample recipe
White Chicken Chili - easy real food meal
Click on photo for the sample recipe
In her book, Lisa Leake gives lots of suggestions for packing lunches as well :). 




For more information on her book, or to pre-order for the guaranteed lowest price (it comes out October 25th), you can check out Amazon or check out her website or here for more inside info. And if you pre-order, and leave your information at the first link above, you will get bonus ebook.

If you are like me, you are always looking for ways to be a little healthier, and eat a little cleaner, but only if its easy.  This is a great resource to make that goal attainable!  



100 Days of Real Food Fast and Fabulous - quick and easy real food for real people


  

Oct 1, 2016

How to Make a Traditional Science Lab More Inquiry Based

5 Easy Steps to Add Inquiry into your Science Labs 

We all know that there is a big push to increase inquiry in our science labs, but this is not always as easy as it seems.   Often students are not ready for full-blown inquiry, and we as teachers do not have the time, materials, or resources to allow students to investigate their own questions within a classroom setting.  

However, inquiry is based on student interest and relevancy, and on developing process skills so that students are acting as scientists, rather than just students.  This can (and probably should) be done in small steps.  Here are 5 easy ways to introduce more inquiry into your classroom. 
5 steps to make your science classroom more inquiry based.

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