Activities for Learning Science and Math

Active learning has a powerful impact on student learning. How? Student achievement increases through mastery of science and math content as a result of this technique. Students also develop improved problem solving, communication, and higher order thinking skills.

Click on picture to read more.

Student understanding in math involves the strategy of learning through connection of math concepts. In support of this strategy, the math function generator game helps students by using hands-on minds-on applications of concepts. As students play the game, they develop a better understanding of math through linking factual knowledge and conceptual knowledge.

Math games help students make connections within and between math concepts as they learn to problem solve outside the normal math learning context.

Click on picture to read more.....

Teaching strategies in math for English as second language (ESL) learners require a focus on the integration of concept vocabulary, along with proper academic grammatical structures. However, building mathematical concepts in these students brings increased comprehension when lessons focus on content rather than strictly on linguistic format. Math language acquisition takes place when lessons are presented in a meaningful manner, which are also understandable.

17 teaching strategies for English language learners, along with classroom management techniques, are designed to prepare these students for additional math course work.

Click on picture to read more....

An online daily newspaper offering the latest ideas, topics, trends, articles, and resources for teaching science and math.

Click on picture to read the latest edition.....

The primary purpose of blog is to facilitate interaction between a teacher and his or her students. This is possible because a blog is a dynamic tool which can be easily updated or transformed as necessary to meet the needs of a science or math class.

The integration of blog technology in a class requires an investment of time. Because of this commitment, additional evidence is needed to support the integration this technology in a science or math class curriculum.

Click on picture to read more....

The Flip camera is great for all types of projects in science and math - at any grade level. Flip cameras are small handheld video cameras that can record 30 or 60 minutes worth of video. They connect to a computer with a USB plug that "flips" out from the side of the camera.

The benefits of these cameras include another means for assessing students understanding of concepts beyond worksheets and tests. Besides a teacher's record, the videos provide a digital record for parents and administrators to show a student's successes or areas which need improvement.

Click on picture to read more...

Are you searching for a way to share documents, presentations, slideshows, or a series of photos or images with your students?

Then Voice Thread is the free Web 2.0 tool for you and your students (teachers can register for a free education account).

Voice Thread allows you and your students to add audio, video, and text as part of conversations concerning science or math content.

Comments can be added using a pre-recorded audio file, microphone, call from a phone, or webcam and microphone.

A Voice Thread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world. This is great when your class is collaborating on a project with students in another time zone or other locations around the world.

Click on picture to find out more about using Voice Thread in science and math.

Integrating the science process skills within your teaching does not require drastic changes. It simply involves making the process of science more explicit in lessons, investigations, and activities you are already using in your curriculum.

The science process skills are the methods used for helping our students understand how we know what we know about the world in which they live. This often means going beyond a science textbook and supplementing the core-content within textbooks. It also means using your course content as a means for exposing students to the real process of science.

Click on the picture to find out more about integrating science process skills in lessons.

Online science projects provide active and engaged learning, along with encouraging students to develop a better understanding of science. Students are also more likely to retain the knowledge gained through these online activities, because they are more connected with the learning process. The collaborative nature of the science projects listed below help students develop the ability to work in both team-based and independent work.
Teaching Science Using Online Technology

Project based learning science activities are an effective method of integrating online technology into the science curriculum. A typical project can easily accommodate computers and the Internet, as well as other technological tools. This approach to teaching science can invigorate the learning environment, energizing the curriculum with real-world relevance, and spark students' desire to investigate the real-world.

Using online technology resources fits within best practices of web-based tool integration, because teaching science using online project based learning resources provides opportunities not typically available in the isolation of a single classroom. Web-based science activities provide students with access to additional resources for learning science concepts, because these online activities remove the walls and bring the world into the classroom.
Web-Based Projects in Science to Support Student Learning

The following seven online project based learning activities in science are designed for students in elementary school, middle school, and high school science. Enrollment is free and students collaborate with other science students around the world. These projects lend themselves to inquiry based teaching and learning, along with applications of the science process skills.

* Down the Drain - a science project designed for middle school science students to share information about water usage with other students around the country and the world. Students collect water use data in their household and school for determining the average amount of water used by one person in a day. Then students compare their calculated average amount of water used per person per day with students in other parts of the world (ongoing project).

Click on picture to read more....

Teaching Algebra is always a challenge with students, because it is procedural driven and typically taught without any connection to the real-world.

This is why students constantly ask - "I will never use this, so why do I need to learn it?"

This explanation - "You need to learn it, because algebra helps you develop logic thinking skills and employers expect you to have passed an algebra class in high school." falls on students' deaf ears.

Algebra needs to be taught in the context of real-life applications so students can develop a better understanding of why and where algebra is needed.

When I took algebra in school, a long time ago, it was boring and I asked the same questions students ask today. All we did was work problems in class after the teacher demonstrated how to solve the problem on the board. I passed, although I hated every minute of algebra class.

Fast forward a couple of decades - Has anything changed? In most cases no! My children learned algebra the same way as I did, except this time they are completely turned off to mathematics.

When algebra is connected with real life situations, it gives students a personal connection. They can draw upon their prior knowledge and life experiences to help make these critical connections.

Everything else is evolving and changing, so should algebra continue to be taught the same way?

Click on the picture to read more.....

A common question every parent and teacher has heard from children at some point - Why is the sky blue?

Learning the correct answer is important. Because once children hear an answer several times, right or wrong, this answer becomes embedded in their brain.

Convincing them otherwise, especially if they learned the wrong answer, takes a lot of evidence to undo this misconception.

Why the Sky is Blue? - Common Answers

Children come up with a variety of answers when asked why the sky is blue.

Their answers reflect what they hear from peers, parents, and movies or television.

Here are a few common answers children give:

* The sunlight reflects off the oceans.
* The sky is blue because it is the bottom of space.
* Because of all the water in the sky.
* The sky reflects off the top of clouds which contain water.

The sky appears blue because the molecules of air in the upper atmosphere scatter the blue waves of light more than the other colors as sunlight passes.

This answer will illicit another response from children -- But light is clear because you do not look blue!

It is true light is clear, because of all the colors which make up sunlight. At this point, children will want proof.

Click on the picture to read more.....

A brief overview of pod casting is discussed, strategies for integration in math and science are provided, and pod casting resources are provided.

A podcast is a way of publishing audio files on the Internet. With a podcast users do not have to check a web site for new episodes.

They can subscribe (via an RSS feed) and receive new episodes automatically. A video podcast, or vodcast, is a podcast that uses video.

An enhanced podcast is an audio podcast that has pictures associated with it, like a slideshow.

Click on the picture to read more.....

Designing Science Experiments Using Questions

Questions are critical to any science project; this is the way scientists begin every experiment. Scientists use inquiry-based questioning to help them ask more questions about how to conduct an experiment.

Helping children follow this process can be accomplished by asking the following questions about - How does Sunlight affect the growth of plants?

10 Questions for Designing the Experiment:

1. What does this make you think about? - Helps them remember other similar type experiments.

2. What do you need to know? - They think about how they will determine the answer to the experiment's question?

3. What materials will you need? - They think about actual materials needed and how they will collect data with these materials.

4. What will you measure in the experiment? - They think about what to measure to answer the experiment question along with defining control, independent, and dependent variables.

5. How will you measure? - They think about how they will actually take measurements.

6. What will happen if? - They think about other variables which will affect their experiment's results.

7. How will you record your data? - They think about data tables and other ways to record their observations during the experiment.

8. Will you average? - Helps them think about multiple trials.

9. How long will you conduct the experiment? - They think about a reasonable period of time for the experiment.

10. What do you predict will happen? - Helps them formulate a hypothesis.

Click on the picture to red more......

Science applications (Apps) for iPod Touch offer students and teachers excellent tools to help students spend more time learning science content in class and laboratory situations.

Although many Science Apps are loaded with ads and other distracting information, I have found several that are free of ads.

Click on the picture to read more ........

For students to make connections in algebraic thinking in problem solving situations, it is important they learn to use algebra symbolism to represent known and unknown information. To this end they must express problem solving situations as linear, quadratic, or exponential models. This way of thinking also requires students to model, represent, analyze, and generalize contextualized problems in a variety of problem solving situations as they begin to think algebraically.

Click on the picture to read more....

Math applications (apps) for iPod Touch offer teachers excellent ways to focus students in math classes.

Although many Math Apps are loaded with ads and other distracting information, I have found several that are ad free.

All are available on iTunes and look forward to others sharing math apps they find useful in the classroom.

There are many lists going around about what the next decade will bring in K-12 education, especially focusing on those things that will become obsolete. Well, I decided to create my own list of 5 things that should be obsolete in K-12 education by 2020.

10 Award Winning Books that inspire students to inquire into science: Some of best science books for K-12 science education is provided along with links to additional science book resources to support scientific inquiry.

The use of reading strategies that incorporate project-based learning, helps set a situation in which math is learned. These circumstances help students understand that math is more relevant to their own world - making math personal.