While cleaning my stockroom at the end of this school year, I found an immense amount of materials that I could have used if I had known they were here. If you’re starting a new teaching assignment, or if you’ve never looked through everything in your stockroom, take a day and do it. You can’t count on your colleagues to know where everything is unless they’ve gone through the supplies recently. I spent a huge amount of unnecessary time and money to find materials and supplies that we already had. It’s worth the time investment to find out what’s in there.
Todd Staheli at Whitman has created a fantastic world science report assignment, in which students investigate critical topics in science today.
The topics include:
Ecology
1. Global Population ? how many humans can one world handle?
2. Deforestation ? why is it happening and what are the local/global concerns?
3. Global Warming ? what is happening and how are humans involved?
4. Chernobyl ? nuclear accidents happen; do the risks outweigh the benefits?
5. Alternative Energy ? Solar, wind, hydrogen fuel cells etc (more…)
The 2004 NSTA Northwestern Area Convention will be held in Seattle November 18-20, 2004. It should be a great opportunity to learn and collaborate.
I’ve made a few email announcements at my school asking for snails, and several (4) staff members have brought in critters from their back yards. I currently have two local species, helix aspersa and something else with a yellow shell. If you are looking for a good class pet that supports the Diversity of Life curriculum, look no farther than the land snail.
The Bellevue School District has asked me to post some material here. Stay tuned.
I’m inventorying my EMM kit this week so I can return it. I highly recommend having students sort and count the K’Nex. It took one class a single period to get the job done, and they had fun.
UPDATE: I found a ton of parts that I had considered lost when cleaning my room after returning the kit. I’ll be taking a car trip to the SMC soon.