Thoreau has left his legacy in many ways. Walden’s Pond is a classic case study of the connection between man and nature. Now there is a new digital resource that highlights the lives of many individuals who reflect the same connection and concern. Thoreau’s Legacy introduces the lives of Americans who are working to bring awareness about the issues of Global Warming. Each story is unique. I think my students will like reading about these people.
Thanks to the crew at NSTA. I discovered some new resources for teaching environmental science. Environmental System Science Education Alliance (ESSEA) has published 28 problem based modules on their web site. Each problem presents a seperate case with resource links and activities for students to help answer the questions posed by each case. Teacher’s can login to the site and have access to student management and assessment tools. This could be a great add-on to my courses. Or perhaps I can adapt some modules for enrichment.
I was also happy to see they had a a permafrost case study about Alaska. They cite Kenji’s work with schools and collecting permafrost data too.
It was a busy spring semester and I didn’t add much to this blog. But the school year is over and I have a renewed interest in documenting ideas and resources I stumble upon. Here’s one to start with. It’s from the Illinois Online Network. They have a list of blogs and my favorite area is the site called Pointers and Clickers
Information Technology in Science Instruction - http://itsi.portal.concord.org/
The Concord Consortium has created over 100 Inquiry Based Science activities that can be accessed through an online portal. This portal allows teachers to facilitate the activities online. Many of the activities utilize science probes. The software and content is opensource and designed to work with most probeware. All of the software that requires downloading is Java based.
This fall I used their pedigogica genetics software with my video classes. It was a fantastic activity for modeling genetic inheritance. I have not used the probeware activities. I must figure out a way to purchase probes for my classes. It’s going to take me a while to understand the interface but I think this has huge potential for teaching science at a distance. The portal also allows teachers to develop their own activities using tools developed by this project too.
I have been using the Teaching Boxes resources from DLESE in my Earth Science class. I like these lessons and resources because they are inquiry oriented and include cooperative learning/grouping. All of the resources are available in a digital format. You do have to collect materials for the hands-on materials. I think it would be very easy to incorporate these in an online course as well as the video conference format. The one thing that is missing is the assessment component. I do need to build some rubrics and assement guidelines for these lessons.
I just learned about two new tools for using Skype. FIrst, the new mac version supports desktop sharing. It’s beta but it works very well. Another gadget that’s now on my shopping list is a USB conference speaker. This would allow you to use speakerphone features as you skype. Great for long conference calls and chats with several folks at one site. It’s about $150.00.
http://www.clearone.com/personal-usb-speakerphone.html
Here is a copy of the slide I made to illustrate the concepts of phenotypes and genotypes.
Recessive Genes
I just stumbled upon this today when I was looking for resources on the rock cycle. Anenberg has published some self study modules that are interactive and include a quiz at the end. These would be good resources for students who miss a unit and need to make up work. Also wonderful for folks who teach online courses. I may be able to use one or two as a demo as I introduce new topics.
http://www.learner.org/interactives/
Interactive
