al-mofhariz

I am on another vacation this weekend..this time to celebrate the wedding of my fourth grade colleague Joe Curtin! So, I peeked back through my posts and picked an oldie but a goodie that I posted back in December.  Enjoy! I am all about authentic assessments. I want to peer into the child's mind and see what she or he really understands about a concept that I have taught.  However, one of the drawbacks to this is TIME.  It takes time to check work and make comments and provide appropriate feedback.  Right? This fall I was introduced to a new element of formative instruction that will be implemented in all the FOSS 3rd edition NEW units.  I sat with my jaw wide open as I thought...this is what I've been waiting for. So let me tell you how it's done! Step one:   When you are teaching a lesson, pick out one or two main concepts that you want them to understand.  Write them on the sheet I have provided for FREE in google docs. (right under the Teachers P...

I just love to look at the clouds....laying on my back and staring overhead for hours at the shapes in the sky....One of my favorite books is It Looked Like Spilt Milk  .  This book take the imagination route of looking at white shapes and imagining they are a birthday cake, a tree, a bunny...but all in all they are just a cloud in the sky.  This book is a great hook at any age! With my Seeds of Science Weather and Water unit, we spend a lot of time looking at cloud cover and analyzing what type of precipitation they create.  We learn where these cloud form in the sky and how much humidity is involved in each one. But eventually, we need to learn the official names of the clouds for our Virginia SOLS.  So I created a matching game where the kids have to match the picture and name to the description of the cloud. You can download it for FREE in the Google Docs page. Also, one of my "fans" took the what do you wonder about weather and turned it into a PowerPoint....

It may be apocryphal, but Liberty Hyde Bailey (one of my heros) once explained that he did not teach "men to be farmers" in his horticulture courses at Michigan Agricultural College in the 1880s; he taught "farmers to be men." That quote came to mind when I read over this profile of Benjamin Cohen's approach to teaching Engineering Studies at Lafayette: "Cohen sees a bright future for the engineering studies program. He and his colleagues are looking to enhance what he calls the 'hard skills' like political philosophy, historical context, cultural familiarity, communication, and environmental knowledge to help students become leaders of creative innovation and design. These skills can encourage a better awareness of what Byatt meant by a world 'full of life and light.'" Cohen recently published Notes from the Ground , on early American ag science and is now at work on a book recounting the history of food adulteration and purity...

I don't spend much time thinking about science and images, but I know I should spend more. Two pieces of evidence. 1) This collection of atlases: " Places and Spaces: Mapping Science " --- I suppose these are the sort of things that Daston and Galison analyzed in Objectivity , but with a bit more reflexivity (since many seem to be science studies-oriented; also, that rhymed). Unfortunately, the Web version doesn't allow for close up looks of intriguing maps like this and this . 2) A recent CFP from the University of Rochester for "Image, Truth, and Distortion," a grad conference: "The term “image” is broadly construed: images from any time period and of every variety from political cartoons to frescoes to digital photography, as well as literary, biographical, metaphorical or mental images, are acceptable subjects of investigation.  Ideal submissions should explore the ways in which images have been used throughout history to reflect, re...

Have I said lately how much I love Seeds of Science?   We have been exploring weather in our classroom using this module for weeks now.  One of my favorite investigations is exploring humidity.   We set up five stations with humidity strips to test for humidity in the air.  Humidity is the measure of water vapor and is a major indicator of precipitation and cloud coverage.  We place strips on the roof of a closed system with water in it... and with out water in the system.  If there is humidity in the air, the strips will turn pink or purple. Next, we put humidity strips on a tray and wave it with a cardboard fan.  A real fan works better, but I didn't have one available. We also put humidity strips on the closed system of a plastic bag - that the students breathe into.  Yes, water vapor from the students....cool! Our last investigation involves putting strips on a pencil that hangs over a cup of hot water that we have warmed in a kettle.  Th...

If you are wondering where I have been lately, well I am recovering at home from surgery. Today is the first day I have felt like looking at my blog and it is killing me that I have let it go "dormant" for the past few weeks. I decided to repost this from earlier in the year, because exit cards are always a great informational tool to use any time during the year. Enjoy! Today I am posting a little resource I put together on Exit cards. I am calling it "Exit Cards 101 " and it is geared to science classrooms...although it can be adapted for any subject. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Exit-Cards-101 It is available for FREE for all you guys out there to use and share with your colleagues. These card are great to do with an assesment that I hope to share tomorrow for Quick Sorting. Stop by and check it out again... Thanks guys!

The 47th Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Biology will be held at the University of Pennsylvania, beginning with an opening reception and plenary the evening of Friday April 20th, followed by the presentation of papers, a faculty panel, and a dinner on Saturday April 21st. Events will primarily take place in Claudia Cohen Hall, located at 249 South 36th Street, between Spruce Street and Locust Walk, on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. Abstracts (200 words) of papers submitted for presentation are due by Wednesday February 1st, 2012 at 5pm, and can be emailed to Andy Hogan at: ahog@sas.upenn.edu . Decisions on submitted abstracts will be made as soon as possible, and the chosen presenters will be informed on or about March 1st. Some travel support is available for graduate student presenters. Hope to see you there!

A few weeks ago, a piece in the NYT Style Section called " New York's Literary Cubs " was making the rounds. It profiled The New Inquiry ("a scrappy online journal and roving clubhouse that functions as an Intellectuals Anonymous of sorts"), whose founders were after "a kind of literary salon reminiscent of the Lost Generation of the 1920s." The story went viral thanks in large part to Gawker, who used it as evidence for " Why You Should Never Be Profiled by The New York Times Style Section ." Their argument? While "[f]or hundreds of years, unbearable young people have tried to hang out with other unbearable young people," these young people were capitalized upon by the Times. I'll leave their (fun) "Two Audience" theory of the Style Section (hint: the writing is purposefully annoying) to them. Instead, I want to explore the gap between "literary salons" ("Moveable Feast-type stuff") and the earlie...

Elizabeth Warren As some of you know, I am very interested in the various occupy movements that, until recently, were going on all over the country. (Occupy Boston remains in place, as does, by the way, Occupy Harvard.) I sympathize with the general feeling of frustration, and I think it's worth trying to figure out how to express some of those sentiments in a more rigorous way. Elizabeth Warren, who is currently running for Senate in Massachusetts, must be one of the smartest people in politics. I recently watched a clip of an interview she did with Charlie Rose in which she makes a very compelling argument that's worth thinking about in historical perspective. Warren basically says that although she agrees the 2008/09 bailout of several large banks, AIG, as well as GM and Chrysler were necessary, it was not executed the right way. The question she poses is this: was the bailout designed to preserve particular institutions, or to preserve the US Economy? "What we did whe...

Just a quick post to direct our readers' attention to this week's themed issue of the New York Times "Science Times" on "The Future of Computing." There are some cool interactive features and a series of interesting profiles on computing visionaries. Given recent posts on scientists and cinema and science and literature , I wanted to highlight this interview with SF author Neal Stephenson. I must confess to not being a huge fan of his prose, but I have recently developed significant academic interest in how science fiction colonizes the future. A big part of history of science as a discipline involves paying attention to how people have envisioned the future and how that vision was received. Why not start bringing more attention to science fiction into that endeavor? There's a reason that the word for having knowledge of things before they happen is "prescience." Someone who is giving this a lot of attention is Patrick McCray. He...

I've recently happened upon a couple different attempts to recreate the history of two sci-enviro-tech villains of the late twentieth century. Each, I think has its merits for passive amusement or even as a teaching tool---although I've yet to try either out with students. First, consider the history of Asbestos, Quebec , as told through the eyes of the world's largest Asbestos mine, in graphical form. With pleasant drawings and nice-enough background theme, this graphic novel emphasizes the rise and fall of an industrial town, with plenty of pathos, and approaching the right sort of ambivalence about the fire-proofing material (I'm reminded of Don Worster's mantra from Rivers of Empire : "How in the remaking of nature, do we remake ourselves?" ---How in the eradication of fire, do we poison ourselves?) There's also an affiliated documentary about the town of Asbestos from the Network in Canadian History and Environment. DDT gets a similarly inventive ...

We are working on WEATHER!  This is one of my favorite units because I use a unit from Seeds of Science called "Weather and Water".  This unit is so super cool because it takes children on an adventure through weather using excellent books as well as great hands-on experiences.   I can't give away all the "secrets"... I can only showcase a few moments from my classroom... One thing we do during this unit is observe water as it evaporates in the classroom.  Such an easy experiment to do - just set it up and watch the water disappear! We also keep track of the daily weather on a class chart and in our science notebooks. Another cool thing...we keep track of the clouds by making sky observations... Real photos help the children key in on the weather terms so that we can not only learn the scientific names of the clouds, but the types of weather that they create. And of course, DON'T FORGET THE WORD WALL...pocket charts are awesome! This is just a peek into my c...