pollution

Pollution

Pollution is a topic that is always in the media and even if we ignore that is we still can not hide from the fact that is is all around us.  This is a link to the EPA's website and on there there are links that explain what the different types of pollution are and how they are effecting us. I would like to use this site for a project resource. The students can pick a pollution topic and use this site as one of the suggested resources to the project.

Evolution

Evolution 101 is a site that has a great picture to text ratio.  This is essential to a lot of biological topic.  Picture are worth a million words.  I would ask the student to look at this as a homework assignment before I introduce the topic of evolution to the class.  This way students will come into the class hopefully having a better understanding about what evolution is. 

Essential Question #3

How can young adult literature peak student's interest in science? 

          As I have been researching this question, I found an article that talks about teaching a class that mixes science fiction and science to introduce complex topics such as taxonomy and evolution.  When reading fiction novels the reader can be transported into other worlds and see things that their eyes could never see.  Using this these environments we can walk through different scenarios.  A teacher could ask students to find a creature in the novel and work on a taxonomy assignment.  They would have to be able to describe the animal and then identify what key characteristics they would use and place them into a classification of animals.  The students would have to read critically and be able to piece together enough information on the description on of animals to be able to properly classify them. 

            I am new to the Maryland school system and I don’t know how keen they are on evolution being taught in the classroom, but these books are great ways for students to get to thinking about, “hey how did that happen?”  Imagine if Earth were left a lone for a million years, what would happen?  Another thing would be talking about convergent evolution and talk about how these “space aliens” walk around on two legs and have opposable thumbs like us.  Using these science fiction novels there could be endless questions that could be applied to evolution.

Bixler, Andrea. (2007). Teaching evolution with the aid of Science Fiction. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6958/is_6_69/ai_n28470206/

How Energy Moves, 2 sites

It is important for students to understand the flow of energy.  It gives prospective that there is nothing isolated in our world and how everything is linked in some way.

Water, Carbon and Nitrogen

This site is a great quick review site for student. Everything is explained in very basic terminology and would be great reference for students before an exam.  The pictures are great, they are not just basic black in white pictures, but very colorful with pictures of plants and animals.  I love to use multiple pictures to emphasize the same concept.



Food chains and webs

This site is meant for a high level of readers then the class I would be teaching this to, but it explains food webs and chains really well.  I would ask students to visit this site and primarily focus on the first section and if they would like to skim over the rest of the site and see if they see anything they would like to know more about in class. I would be a great site to stimulate questions in class and we could have a discussion to expand on some of the more complex language and topics on this site.