This workshop engages middle school educators in an integrated STEM lesson that focuses on designing a vehicle that wins it all! Using only recyclable boxes and lids, participants will create a vehicle and use it to unpack concepts of energy, friction, and gravity while practicing the process of problem-solving.
Come learn how to create standards-based Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning assignments with your students! See how crafting CERs parallels literacy standards and fosters opportunities for cross-curricular planning. We will share strategies for student success, as well as student-created exemplars and rubrics.
This workshop will focus on effective teaching strategies for the English Language Learners in our classrooms. Participants will explore and implement innovative ways of teaching science content and vocabulary. Participants will discover the positive outcomes of hands-on learning, teaching and learning through reflection and the value of discovery/inquiry teaching methods. You will learn more about English Language Learners, their needs and how to choose appropriate materials and hands-on activities for the K-4 classroom.
Learn how one district's ELA and STE leadership and teachers developed literacy units that build from the science units to extend student's science learning through reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
How are both natural and human forces shaping the land where we live? Using a combination of field ecology in the Schoolyard and land cover change map based activities in the classroom, Teacher Emilie Cushing, will share how she is structuring an exploration into student analysis of how the landscape around her school and town is changing over time. Her students are collecting, recording project data and contributing that information to a region-wide network of Schoolyard field sites based at Harvard Forest. Schoolyard Ecology Program Coordinator, Pamela Snow, will share how teachers in grades 6-12 can participate in the "Our Changing Forest" project or similar work in getting students actively involved in Citizen Science projects led by professional Ecologists and supported year round by education and science staff at an internationally recognized ecological research institution.
Workshop participants will participate in a hands-on activity that involves calculating approximately how much carbon is being stored in the forests in several Massachusetts' towns. Teacher Emilie Cushing developed this activity for use in her classroom and will offer workshop participants the chance to be the students during this workshop. Land Cover Change maps used in this workshop are all available as free downloads online. Many other related free online resources will also be referenced.
Bring your laptop and learn how to integrate computer science and biology to address the issue of pollinator decline. Explore how the programming language Starlogo can be used to model natural phenomena. Discover how this methodology can be applied to other scientific concepts and/or problems.
Are your students struggling to interpret diagrams of content they understand? Students are often asked to create and analyze models to demonstrate their understanding but the skills of modeling is often taken for granted in our teaching. How can you teach modeling skills and content at the same time in a meaningful way? This card sort style activity models the introduction of a new species with special attention to the effect on existing predators and producers. Students model the flow of energy and matter in an ecosystem while evaluating their models and examining its limits. Participants will receive a set of materials to try in their classrooms.
