al-mofhariz

  Arts Integration! Don't take it from me...take it from the US Department of Education!  This short video shares many examples of arts in action.  Our school is adding Arts Integration to our STEM model to create STEAM.  We are in the beginning stages of planning for next year but I thought I show you where we are starting.   Websites for Training and Lessons         Education Closet is a great website for professional development, lesson planning, and assessments.   Some of the projects that are in the works include: Sunflowers from Van Gogh - in our Plants Unit Breezy Energy - in our Wind Unit Reading the Art Another great resource that we are using to help us plan comes from the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.  The website is called " ArtsEdge".            There are 28 different themes based on social studies, math, science and literacy.        ...

T is for Technology!  Now, hear me please...there is a reason my blog is called ScienceGal and not TechGal! This is not my area of expertise.  Still, I am jumping in with both feet as we add new techno gadgets into our school this year. Let me set the stage....we are in a partnership program with University of Mary Washington in which they are helping us create a "Maker Space".  The professor in charge is looking to see how elementary kids will use this space to create, design and innovate.  If you are not familiar with the Maker's Space movement, check out www.SylviaShow.com  . This website is really fun and introduces you to all the goodies that are in the market today! What goodies do we have coming? *3 D Printer * Squishy Circuits * Makey Makey * Humingbird Kits * Lego Robotics *Tools *and more! When school starts again, I will be glad to take a few pictures and post them with comments about what we are working on at the time!  

On Monday, the  American Historical Association  published an official statement urging graduate programs and university libraries to "to adopt a policy that allows the embargoing of completed history PhD dissertations in digital form for as many as six years." The statement goes on to note that "History has been and remains a book-based discipline." However, the increasingly common practice of requiring that completed dissertations be posted freely online may make it more difficult for recent graduates to secure a publisher. This, in turn, could make it much more difficult for young scholars to earn tenure. As the comments section that follows the AHA's online publication of its statement against online publishing indicates, this strikes many as a backwards-looking strategy. As I have argued myself in a previous post on this blog, scholarly publishing is clearly moving online. And as it does so, the nature of how we consume, share, and disseminate knowledge i...

First...I want to remind everyone that the FIRST letter in STEM/STEAM is S = for SCIENCE!  So, that being said, I always link my STEAM activities to the Science Content.  My first unit this year is on the Environment.  Many people don't really think of Environment as an opportunity for STEAM integration....but that is where you are wrong.  There are so many connections to find..if you just start to think that way. Before I go on a ramble and forget the reason for this post, I'd like to share with you the design process that we use.  It's from Engineering is Elementary (my favorite website for STEM lessons).  You can download a poster on that site or create your own, like I did!  I created a poster with the five key words - Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, and Improve.  Then we brainstormed other words that mean the same as the key words and added them on the outside of the diagram. When you are working with the students you are going to want to ask a ...

A few weeks ago, in the wake of the Snowden Affair, I announced a contest to write a new social contract modeled on terms of service. Terms of service are, of course, the things most of us click through without reading when either signing up for a web-based service or installing a piece of software. There was doubtless something sarcastic, even cynical, about this contest. A visualization of the US Internet, a web of technical and social bonds, which, like all such bonds, include expectations. (Source: National Science Foundation) Today, I would like to announce the winner: Tall White American Male (Twitter: @TallWhiteMale), a resident of Chicago, who penned a proposed US Terms and Conditions. So, congrats to Tall White American Male. As spelled out in the contest announcement, he'll receive this remarkable shirt .  I have pasted his winning entry below, but before we come to that, I want to discuss why I held the contest in the first place. Some people have asked me what this con...

Where to start? Where to start?   When moving into our new STEAM plan, we felt VERY comfortable with our Science and Math curriculum.  We have been using TERC's Investigations for math and Delta Education's FOSS for science.  The rest...is still a work in progress.  Still, we have found some great resources, websites, and curricula. Resources: Children's books Head over to Amazon.com and check out some books we have found:   Engineering the ABC's by Patty Novak.  This book talks about everyday materials that engineers have helped create and how they effect our everyday lives. Engineering Elephants by Dr. Emily Hunt is really good for early childhood K-2.  The book is told in rhythm and rhyme.  You can look through it at Amazon and take a sneak peak! Websites:     www.manufacturingiscool.com  This is a really great place for you to use with the whole class or for students to explore one-on-one.  Start with a bunch of pict...

My school is quickly diving into being a STEAM school - something I am really excited about!  We wanted to really BE a STEAM school and not just SAY we are a STEAM school and that has taken some planning, thinking, and reflection.  Luckily, my school already has some AMAZING curriculum resources available to help with this endeavor and we think we have the perfect combination to create a really good program. S = Science - FOSS science kits and science notebooks (K-5) T = Technology - Lego robotics, squishy circuits, hummingbird kit, 3-D printer E = Engineering - Engineering is Elementary A = Arts - CETA program (in conjunction with the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC) M = Mathematics - Investigations program (by TERC) Top this off with a really good reading curriculum (FINALLY) provided by Benchmark Literacy that allows us to integrate science and literacy easily and effectively. So what is this approach going to look like? It will look different at each level. ...

Secret Science Club features biologist, tomato aficionado & scientist/farmer Zach Lippman on flower power and the DNA of feeding the world In the wild , more flowers mean more seeds, more fruit, and more food . It’s no wonder we think flowers are so pretty and awesome. Zach Lippman thinks flowers—and the genetics that control the timing of flowering—may hold the key to bigger and better bumper crops . A tomato-loving biologist who cultivates 80 tomato varieties   in greenhouses at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Dr. Lippman studies the genes and hormones that regulate flower production with the goal of growing more (and tastier) food for a hungry world . Combining old-school plant-breeding with the latest genetic discoveries and a little sleuthing , Dr. Lippman recently pinpointed a naturally mutated gene in a varietal that—when crossed with a normal tomato plant—produces  sweeter  tomatoes and 60 percent higher yield. That’s a whole lotta bruschetta….  Befo...

Social contract theory—the idea that each person (implicitly or explicitly) agrees to a set of rules, rights, and duties by choosing to live in a society—has rested at the heart of Western political thought for the last three to four hundred years. The fallout surrounding the Snowden Affair and the NSA snooping programs that it has unveiled can be seen as a brouhaha over a social contract. The aggrieved feel that they had signed onto an agreement, say, The Bill of Rights, which they believe these programs violate. Most of the discussions I have heard so far focus on how we can ensure proper oversight of the NSA's programs, either through courts or through Congress. Many express skepticism about the viability of such oversight systems, however. Who will watch the watchers? And who will watch the watchers' watchers? I'm with the skeptics here. I have little faith in systems of oversight, so I do not think they are the place to put our focus. There's another option: we cou...

Nathan Andrew Fain's comment on my   last post  was so interesting, I thought I would respond to it here. In that post, I briefly explored—and mostly asked questions about—how the NSA's programs, like PRISM, may be shaping technological change. As many know, there is a long—several hundred year—history of defense spending and priorities influencing science and technology, and I wanted to ask how government surveillance programs might do the same.  In his comment, Fain considered the flip side of my point, namely how the Snowden Affair might encourage others to change technologies. He wrote, " The NSA programs, or more accurately the revelation of them, will push in ernest the development of subversive technologies." He went on to talk about John Gilmore and the cypherpunk movement, which sees cryptology and the avoidance of surveillance as potential loci for social change. I knew nothing about this movement, know little more now , but am hoping to learn, first by rea...

This post builds on the one Lukas put up last week. Most commentaries on the Snowden Affair, PRISM, and the other NSA programs that have come to light have focused on whether these programs are constitutional, whether Snowden is a hero or villain or something else, and, now, what these programs will mean for US foreign relations . I have also heard people ask how any of us could be surprised by these programs, and for a few days, people spent a lot of time talking about Snowden's girlfriend's pole-dancing skills. In other words, the Snowden Affair has all the markings of a major American media event.   In this post, I'd like to exercise the historian's prerogative by exploring how these NSA programs fit into a longer historical trajectory, namely how government spending and procurement influence technological change. The history and sociology of science and technology are full of well-known stories of how government funding affected the direction and growth of technolo...