Week 8 Part 2 - My Thoughts on the Science Challenge

I watched:

Stephanie's
Ali's
and
Cassy's
 voice threads

I learned that integrating technology is actually quite simple and very beneficial. I really liked seeing how other students used kidsperation to analyze and classify  data. I think I would frequently use kidsperation with my science lessons. I also liked the celestia program that allows you to observe the night sky without having wait for night time. I think this would be a lot of fun to use in the classroom.

Week 8 Part 1- My Science Experiment Voicethread

Week 7 Part 1 - My Science Challenge Plan

CONTENT
4th Grade Standard 1: Students will understand that water changes states as it moes through the water cycle
   Objective 1: Describe the relationship between heat energy, evaporation, and the condensation of  water on Earth
      c) Compare the Processes of evaporation and condensation of Water
      d)investigate and record temperature data to show the effects of heat energy on changing the states of water.

 PEDAGOGY
I found my lesson plan in the Let's Go! Investigating Temperature book that goes with the temperature probes.
Observation: Students will observe as water changes from ice to liquid to gas. They will observe the physical changes including changes in temperature
Acquiring and Processing Data: students will record the temperature changes that the water goes through as it changes states and answer questions as they observe and record their data.

Through observing and aquiring and processing data, students will be able to better understand the water cycle, specifically what physical changes happens when water changes states. This activity goes well with the content because it allows the students to observe as the water changes states and then transfer the knowledge gained in this experiment to things they observe in nature, like rain, snow, evaporation, vapor, etc

TECHNOLOGY
The technology I plan to use is the Go! temperature probes. This fits the content and pedagogy because it allows students to observe and acquire the temperature changes that occur as water changes states due to heat energy.
 

Week 6 - Part 2 - My Thoughts on the Virtual Tour

I watched
Ali's
Stephanie's
Cassy's
Virtual Tours

I really had fun with this assignment!

Some upsides are that it is a more exciting way to learn about many subjects like history, and cultures, and geography. It's more interactive and fun. Another upside is you can "visit" places that you would not normally be able to. You can see the surroundings and pictures, and all sorts of things.

Some downsides are it is time consuming to make these tours, especially if you want it to be a quality tour. I think if I were to use these I would try to make a couple every year and just build up my reservoir of tours. Another downside is that google earth takes a while to acclamate to, so I would probably do the tour as a whole class on a projector to familiarize my students with it and then walk them through google earth in the computer lab.

I loved this activity. It was probably my favorite thus far.

Week 6 Part 1 - A Virtual Tour of the Moon

My virtual tour was a trip to the moon! Refer to my last post for the curriculum standard it fulfills. The tour explores various physical features of the moon and then compares it to the physical features of the earth. It is for 3rd grade.

I uploaded my kmz file to my pbworks page. You can find that here: click me

And below is my embedded tour (as you can see)

Week 5 - My Virtual Tour Plan

My Virtual Tour follows the:
3rd Grade Science Standard 1: Students will understand that the shape of the Earth and the moon are spherical and that the earth rotates on its axis to produce the appearance of the sun and moon moving through the sky
Objective 1 Describe the appearance of the earth and the moon
a describe the shape of the Earth and the moon as spherical
c List the differences in the physical appearance of Earth and the Moon as viewed from outer space.

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1.Earth	Remember the geometric shapes we went over last week? What shape does the earth look like? Can you identify other items that are the same shape as the earth?	Picture of geometric shapes Link to wikipedia information about the earth
2. Moon	The moon is also in the shape of a sphere, just like the earth. But it looks different from the earth. List 5 main differences that you see. For one difference measure the diameter of the earth and the diameter of the moon to compare their sizes.	Link to wikipedia information about the moon
3. Plato Moon Crater	Explanation of moon craters. Does the earth have any craters? Research earth crater's on Google to see if there are any. If you find one, write down its name and find a picture for your blog. If there aren't any write on your blog why you think there are no craters on earth	picture of moon crater overlay
4. Sea of Tranquility	Is there water on the moon? There aren't oceans like the ones we have on earth. Descriptions of what the "seas" are on the moon and why they are called seas. What are some seas that we have on earth? Find an ocean or a sea on the earth, write down where it is and 5 interesting facts about it.	picture of moon "sea" overlay

I chose to do a virtual tour of the moon because I thought it would be so exciting for the students to "travel" to the moon like the astronauts do. I think it is much more exciting for them to learn about the craters and "seas" on the moon through google earth because they get to explore and look around at the different features of the moon. They can even see "the dark side" of the moon - which is never seen from earth. AND they get to watch little video clips from satellites that went around the moon!

Kids love space, so any type of lesson you do on the moon would be fun for them. But I think google earth lends more to the imagination and really let's students see what the moon is like.