As expected, there is a Chromebook assignment today. But this assignment is a final project -- a Powerpoint of all of the units that the students covered during the year. What's good about this for me is that I can see what an entire year of seventh grade science looks like -- and once again, this is what I should have taught my seventh graders two years ago.
(Of course this is in my new district, where today is only Day 173. In my old district, today is Day 179 and finals week.)
Here is a complete description of what should be on each of the slides in this final project:
Slide 1: Title Slide (name, period, year, images)
Slide 2: About Me (personal passions, academic passions, family info, anything you want to share about yourself)
For all "unit slides" (3-13) include the following information:
- Summary (explain the topic to somebody that knows nothing about it)
- What did you learn from this unit? What else would you like to learn about this topic/unit?
- Provide an image/screenshot and description of one lab, assignment, or project from this unit
- Images related to the topic that enhance your presentation
Slide 3: Lab Safety (posters, gallery walk, pg. 23)
Slide 4: Thinking Like a Scientist (pg. 6)/Scientific Inquiry (pg. 18) (M&Ms, Drops on a Penny, P.T.)
Slide 5: Metric Measurement (Cornell Notes, scavenger hunt, metric tools, pg. 672-673)
Slide 6: Engineering and Design (straw tower, penny boats, blueprints, E&D process)
Slide 7: Coding (code.org, Scratch, etc.)
Slide 8: Rock Cycle (cartoon/Prezi, interactive, pg. 268)
Slide 9: Plate Tectonics (five paragraph CER, pg. 283)
Slide 10: Ecosystems (slideshow, diorama, screencast)
Slide 11: Matter and Atoms (Gumdrop Lab, pgs. 58, 68, 90, 124)
Slide 12: Chemical and Physical Change (White Before Your Eyes, pgs. 214, 224)
Slide 13: Heat Transfer (Save the Penguins Project)
Slide 14: Year in Review
How did you feel at the beginning of the school year? How did the year go for you? What were some of your biggest accomplishments and challenges throughout the year? How did you overcome your challenges?
Slide 15: The Future
Discuss what you want to accomplish in the future
Include information about possible careers you're interested in, academic goals and non-academic personal goals.
What makes this tricky is that it's based on the preferred integrated model of the science standards. I have written on the blog that I probably should have taught the old standards to Grades 7-8 that year and give only the sixth graders the new NGSS standards. In other words, the above is more like what to teach in my second year (which would have been last year) to seventh graders at the charter.
We notice that there are page numbers listed above. Apparently, there are still old Life (7th) and Physical (8th) Science texts in the classroom. My classroom at the old charter had old Earth (6th) and Life Science texts lying around, but not Physical Science.
But the students are also able to use Google Classroom as well as interactive notebooks to help them with this project. Once again, this demonstrates that I should have used notebooks for science at the old charter.
We also notice that Slide 7 is for "Coding." There was a coding teacher at the old charter, and so I wasn't responsible for teaching coding. Suppose that the unit for Slide 3 is at the beginning of the year and Slide 13 is the most recently completed unit. Then Slide 7, the coding unit, was most likely taught around December -- just in time for National Coding Week.
Meanwhile, Slide 11, on matter and atoms, was taught much too late for Mole Day. But Slide 5, on metric measurement, could indeed have been taught during National Metric Week in October.
Oh, and there's one more slide that is probably well-timed. Slide 9, on plate tectonics, contains a CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) lesson, since there can't be a real plate tectonic lab in the classroom. I assume that this CER is given around January or February -- right when the district assessment for English is given (and that assignment also included a CER).
Let's look at this pacing plan again, except it's based on how I might have taught these lessons back at the old charter. We skip the coding unit since there was a coding teacher, and to make it easier, we assume that each unit lasts about a month.
We notice that there are page numbers listed above. Apparently, there are still old Life (7th) and Physical (8th) Science texts in the classroom. My classroom at the old charter had old Earth (6th) and Life Science texts lying around, but not Physical Science.
But the students are also able to use Google Classroom as well as interactive notebooks to help them with this project. Once again, this demonstrates that I should have used notebooks for science at the old charter.
We also notice that Slide 7 is for "Coding." There was a coding teacher at the old charter, and so I wasn't responsible for teaching coding. Suppose that the unit for Slide 3 is at the beginning of the year and Slide 13 is the most recently completed unit. Then Slide 7, the coding unit, was most likely taught around December -- just in time for National Coding Week.
Meanwhile, Slide 11, on matter and atoms, was taught much too late for Mole Day. But Slide 5, on metric measurement, could indeed have been taught during National Metric Week in October.
Oh, and there's one more slide that is probably well-timed. Slide 9, on plate tectonics, contains a CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) lesson, since there can't be a real plate tectonic lab in the classroom. I assume that this CER is given around January or February -- right when the district assessment for English is given (and that assignment also included a CER).
Let's look at this pacing plan again, except it's based on how I might have taught these lessons back at the old charter. We skip the coding unit since there was a coding teacher, and to make it easier, we assume that each unit lasts about a month.
August: Lab Safety (posters, gallery walk, pg. 23)
September: Thinking Like a Scientist (pg. 6)/Scientific Inquiry (pg. 18) (M&Ms, Drops on a Penny)
October: Metric Measurement (Cornell Notes, scavenger hunt, metric tools, pg. 672-673)
November: Engineering and Design (straw tower, penny boats, blueprints, E&D process)
December: Rock Cycle (cartoon/Prezi, interactive, pg. 268)
January: Plate Tectonics (five paragraph CER, pg. 283)
February: Ecosystems (slideshow, diorama, screencast)
March: Matter and Atoms (Gumdrop Lab, pgs. 58, 68, 90, 124)
April: Chemical and Physical Change (White Before Your Eyes, pgs. 214, 224)
May: Heat Transfer (Save the Penguins Project)
Once again, this pacing plan is based on the seventh grade NGSS standards. But notice that the first few units could have been taught to any of the three middle school grades -- and this is significant because much of my initial reluctance to teach science was due to my fear of having six "preps" (three grades each of math and science).
Certainly all three grades need to know "lab safety" and "thinking like a scientist." And we can keep going, since all three grades need to measure in metric, and engineering/design is also included in the standards for all three grades. In fact, since we have to fit the Illinois State projects into this plan, notice that my mousetrap cars fit in the "Engineering and Design" unit. I also gave my seventh graders a scavenger hunt on Halloween, and that activity is mentioned above for October.
Recall that I also wanted to use Study Island software for my NGSS units. In all three grades, the first Study Island unit is a pretest. The "Lab Safety" unit fits perfectly with the pretest.
In all three grades, the last unit is on human interactions and the environment. The Save the Penguins Project mentioned above fits with human interactions. Since it is the most recently given project, there is still evidence of it visible in the classroom. I was able to find a worksheet:
Background:
Global climate change is affecting many ecosystems and having a negative impact on local populations. The Boulder's Beach Penguins in South Africa are being directly impacted by rising global temperatures and they need human intervention to help the population recover.
Objectives:
Once again, this pacing plan is based on the seventh grade NGSS standards. But notice that the first few units could have been taught to any of the three middle school grades -- and this is significant because much of my initial reluctance to teach science was due to my fear of having six "preps" (three grades each of math and science).
Certainly all three grades need to know "lab safety" and "thinking like a scientist." And we can keep going, since all three grades need to measure in metric, and engineering/design is also included in the standards for all three grades. In fact, since we have to fit the Illinois State projects into this plan, notice that my mousetrap cars fit in the "Engineering and Design" unit. I also gave my seventh graders a scavenger hunt on Halloween, and that activity is mentioned above for October.
Recall that I also wanted to use Study Island software for my NGSS units. In all three grades, the first Study Island unit is a pretest. The "Lab Safety" unit fits perfectly with the pretest.
In all three grades, the last unit is on human interactions and the environment. The Save the Penguins Project mentioned above fits with human interactions. Since it is the most recently given project, there is still evidence of it visible in the classroom. I was able to find a worksheet:
Background:
Global climate change is affecting many ecosystems and having a negative impact on local populations. The Boulder's Beach Penguins in South Africa are being directly impacted by rising global temperatures and they need human intervention to help the population recover.
Objectives:
- Understand the three types of heat transfer: conduction, convection and radiation.
- Understand that certain materials and colors are better at reflecting or absorbing hear
- Design and build a "Penguin Dwelling" that can reduce the impact of heat on the penguin
I even saw some students' completed penguin dwellings near the front of the room.
Some of the projects I think I can figure out -- for example, I actually gave the Gumdrop Lab for matter and atoms at the old charter (albeit to eighth, not seventh, graders). On the other hand, I don't know what the "M&Ms" project is (though it sounds just as tasty as the Gumdrop Lab).
If I had taught this course to my students at the old charter, they might have enjoyed it and learned lots of science. But it would have scared me a little. Once again, since I'm not a science teacher, I don't even know how to obtain materials for these labs and projects. The NGSS often encourages labs at much younger ages than I experienced as a young student -- many NGSS middle school projects I didn't do myself until my own latter years of high school.
The key is to show confidence in front of the students, Make them think that I'm a master of science labs and that I know exactly what I'm doing. I could express my concerns privately to other teachers when I'm not standing in front of the students. This should begin with the aide in my class -- I should have let her know that I wanted to give my students an ambitious science program but I'm uneasy about the projects. She might have been able to help me out or direct me to where I could find help.
Once again, it makes me wish that there was something similar to the MTBoS but for science -- and that I could have found such science blogs during the year I needed to teach science.
Today, a quick Google search for science MTBoS gives the following as the first link:
This links to David Petro, a Southern Californian math and science teacher. Anyway, according to Petro, his best resource isn't someone's blog, but simply Twitter.
I titled today's post "Science on the MTBoS," but there isn't really an "STBoS" beyond what can be found on Twitter. It once again drives the point home -- I really should have created my Twitter account that year. Then I could have drawn other teachers to my tweets by posting classroom pics -- the most popular teacher accounts do so -- and then ask them more about science labs and materials.
But what's done is done. My year of teaching science wasn't successful -- all I can do is keep all of this in mind the next time I'm a teacher.
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