Handouts are available at the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea The perihelion is the point at which earth is closest to the sun. This is due to the fact that the Earth’s orbit is elliptical (ie. oval). At the perihelion: The earth is 2% closer to the sun…
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Handouts are available at the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea The holidays is the time of gift cards. According to a retail survey, the gift card is the 2nd most popular gift. But, what do we do with them afterwards? Save your gift cards because today we discuss how…
Handouts are available at the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea Analyzing graphs and coming up with cer statements is an important skill. But, it’s hard to get practice that involves interesting and relevant data. But, for the holidays, there’s a lot of fun holiday data for students. For…
Handouts are available at the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea The snow globe is a traditional artifact for the holidays. A DIY snow globe can easily be constructed using the following items: a Mason Jar, Water, little ornaments, glitter, and a glue gun (to glue ornaments to the inside…
Handouts are available at the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea It’s almost time for the holidays, which means some well deserved time off. However, what do we do with our students in the days leading up to the final days? I do a group competition that has students…
Handouts are available at the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea Oobleck is an awesome activity that can take multiple lessons to do and discuss. Besides being fun for students to get their hands dirty and squeeze and hold and play with Oobleck, it also raises some interesting questions:…
Handouts are available on the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea There are 3 things we value at REAL Science Challenge: Science, Stories, and Design Thinking. One thing I like to do at the beginning of the year or semester is learn something awesome about each of my…
Handouts are available on the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea Take an empty film canister and fill it up with a few cents worth of materials (ex. A cotton ball, penny, paper clip, toothpick, marble, etc). If you don’t have a film canister, use a PlayDoh container. Seal…
Handouts are available on the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea Not all models need to be physical – food webs and nutrient/water cycles are conceptual, pen-and-paper models of what’s happening. But, all good models have the same qualities I call RPMs: they’re representative, predictive, and modifiable. For example,…
Handouts are available on the bottom of this post in the Resources section. Big Idea Teaching students to develop and evaluate scientific models is in the curriculum, but how can teachers get started? I start by what a good scientific model is. Then, my students and I study and test some fun models…
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