Tuesday, January 22, 2013

TED-Ed Invitation! The Lesson of My Life!


I am amazed!  I can't believe it!  Someone nominated me to do a TED-Ed Lesson and my nomination was chosen!

I was nominated to do a lesson on the "Reasons for the Seasons".  I am so excited that I can't even finish this post.



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This is AMAZING! My 7th grade students loved this TED talk...

I recommend showing this TED talk to all of your middle school students.  Amy Cuddy discusses how to change your life by changing the position of your body for 2 minutes!  My seventh graders absolutely loved this video:  they had a quiz in French class right after their science class, so we spent the final three minutes of our class in a POWER POSE to lower cortisol levels and elevate testosterone!

Photo from Amy Cuddy's TED Talk showing an example of the POWER POSE that we used in class.


I also liked this video because it tells the story of how personal experience shaped Dr. Cuddy's research and the problem that she investigated.  For those teachers who are focusing on teaching the scientific method, she clearly shows a slide that is her Problem Statement and discusses her hypothesis, as well as details on her experimental methods.  She also displays graphs of her experimental measurements (hormone levels).


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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Public Opportunity to Comment on the Next Generation Science Standards Ends on January 29, 2013!

The Next Generation Science Standards | Next Generation Science Standards
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Saturday, January 5, 2013

Teaching Tools Series: Cell Cycle Game for Middle School from NobelPrize.org

This is a great game!
http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/2001/cellcycle.html

Requires Flash 5 browser plug-in.

From the Nobel Prize site:


"Control of the Cell Cycle Game

- What happens during ordinary cell division - mitosis?
- What happens when a cell dies inside our body?
- How does the body know when to make new cells?
- What are the different phases in mitosis?
- In what order does cell division occur and what ensures that nothing wrong happens?
- How can a cancer tumor be formed?"

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Thursday, January 3, 2013

Teaching Tools Series: Quizlet Flash Card Set for Mitosis

I love Quizlet!  My students love Quizlet even more.  I copied someone else's set on Quizlet, and made this new set--added a few images and Voila!  Flashcards for you.

My students especially like that you can print out flash cards or an alphabetized list...and the GAMES!  Their favorite on the SMARTboard is the Scatter game.  It's a fun way to study.


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