Great Science Learning



Here's a snapshot of just a few of the great learning opportunities in science from earlier this week.  Thank you, Mr. Hendrickson, Ms. Patton, Dr. Valdez, and Ms. Klaus for designing engaging learning experiences for our students.

   Mr. Hendrickson's  4th Grade Students at Glenhope Elementary investigating properties of soil.





Ms. Patton's 2nd Grade ASPIRE Students at Glenhope Elementary investigating mixtures by making no-bake cookies.




Dr. Valdez' Biology students at Colleyville Heritage High School creating stop-motion videos as they learn DNA transcription.




Ms. Klaus' 7th-grade students at Heritage Middle School engaging with devices to assess prior knowledge of energy transformations.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Argument Driven Inquiry

Image
7th Grade STEM Students in Jamie Nutt's classroom at Grapevine Middle School share and evaluate justifications as they discuss the claims, data, and justifications from their Food Web Inquiry.  Students investigated foods webs to determine the effects of removing an organism from the web.  Later students will write conclusions and evaluate one another's work in a double-blind evaluation process.   This approach encourages students to own their learning, improves collaboration, provides an avenue for authentic technical writing and builds critical thinking skills.  Argumentation of this nature will prepare students for Advanced Placement courses in the future.  Thanks to Mrs. Nutt and her students for piloting this innovative approach to scientific inquiry.
Read more

GCISD students own the learning!

Image
GCISD students own the learning! An accelerated biology class is all a-buzz, actively discussing the role of enzymes in living systems.  Not that they have actually learned about enzymes yet... quite the contrary.  These students have been tasked with prioritizing and ordering the topics in their upcoming biology unit.  They are processing prior learning and future learning around this unit as well. But why?? This "unpacking" activity now occurs at the beginning of every unit in Mrs. Donovan-DeIturrino's Biology class.  The idea was conceived after getting lots of questions from these students regarding the purpose of some of the concepts and details they were learning, as well as why they needed it in the future.  The students at Aspire Academy at Cross Timbers Middle School really enjoy owning their learning in this way.  Mrs. "D" says she gets far fewer "why are we doing this" questions about past , current and future learning, and "the k
Read more

SMART Carts in AP Physics 1

Image
In AP Physics 1, students use the PASCO SMART carts to study motion, forces, momentum, and energy.  The carts have built-in sensors which can measure position, velocity, acceleration, and force; all of which is transmitted to the students’ laptops in real time.  This allows students to see how the changes in the physical motion of the carts produce the changes in data on the computer screen.  By observing these changes in real time, students make solid connections between visual observations and quantitative data.  In the picture below, students accelerate the cart by tying a string to the force sensor, the other end of which is attached to a mass which hangs over a pulley.  The students see how the velocity of the cart changes as it speeds up.  By varying the mass of the cart or the mass tied to the other end of the string, students derive the relationship between acceleration, force, and mass (Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion) from their own data. Velocity exploration while varying
Read more