Amanda Fritche

“What if you had Animal teeth!?”

Sandra Markle, 2013, Scholastic
ISBN Number [978-0-545-48438-1]

Synopsis of the Book

What if you lost your teeth and grew animal teeth instead? What animal’s teeth would you choose? Would you choose the mighty elephant’s tusk? Or the venomous bite of a rattlesnake? Did you know Hippopotamus teeth clean themselves? Personally I’d choose great white shark teeth and rack up that tooth fairy money.  “What if you had Animal Teeth!?” is a fun, creative book filled with tons of interesting animal facts and photographs. This story allows children to think creatively, use inquiry, and learn about a key component of survival; consumption.

Science Connections

First grade Science:

This book displays characteristics and variation between living organisms.

In addition, consumption is necessary for life.

Teaching Connections

Younger children can be given the opportunity to choose which animal teeth they would prefer. They can then create a picture and writing piece to defend their decision.

Resources

There are a number of books in this fun informative collection, including, “What if you had Animal Ears!?”, “What if you had Animal Feet!?” and “What if you had Animal Hair!?” 

Mad Scientist Mwahaha

Have you ever searched the internet for an image of a scientist? If so, your web page filled up with picture of white lab coats, grey hair, males, goggles, and test tubes. Have you ever asked an individual to draw a picture of a scientists? If so, you probably received the same stereotypical image. Even I view scientists as the stereotypical Albert Einstein image. In fact, at the start of my course in Science methods, my class was asked to draw a picture of a scientist. Mine, along with the majority of the class created pictures similar to this.

This image of "Dr. Copper" who's name I took from the character Sheldon on "The Big Bang Theory" shows a man with crazy hair, a lab coat, a bow tie like Bill Nye of course, safety goggles, a chalk board, atom models, a computer, and a bubbling beaker.

The article, Breaking Science Stereotypes by Alec Bodzin and Mike Gehringer, opens up the conversation about how scientists are perceived. Children of one fourth grade class and two fifth grade classes were given the same assignment I was; draw a scientist. The commonalities were expected. The students drew man in lab coats with crazy gray hair. This is the image of a scientist we are exposed to since childhood. In order to break this stereotypical view, each classroom invited a scientist to join them for a lesson. This allowed the children to see how scientists really look. The fourth grades were exposed to a women engineer. Some aspects of their scientist image proved to be true as she entered the room in her protective lab coat. She also mentioned how she wears other safety equipment, such as a hard hat. That fact that this scientist was a women, was important for the class to see. The majority of individuals view science as a male dominated field. Seeing a women can be encouraging to young girls who strive to do work in the field of science. The fifth grade class had the opportunity to meet a male physicist. To the children's surprise, he was not wearing a lab coat, but rather a shirt and tie. Weeks after meeting the scientist, the students were asked again to draw a picture of a scientist. The new images were for the most part drastically different from the original drawings. There new scientists displayed less stereotypical components than their first images. It is important for teaches to break students of stereotypes. Everyone suffers from stereotypes in some way. These stereotypes can often hold individuals back from making achievements. I chose this article because I was given the same task as these students and it opened my eyes to the strong influence of stereotypes. I hope to encourage my students to look past stereotypes in the world and feel as though they can do anything no matter if they are a boy or girl, tall or short, blonde or burnett, Caucasian or African American.

The hope for a better tomorrow

One of our current world wide issues is climate change. Whether you believe in it or not, science says it's happening. I feel it is important to add current events into a classroom's curriculum. These children are the future. They will suffer from our mistakes and they should be knowledgeable on way to fix them. TIME for kids is a great resource for children to explore science in the news as well as other essential topics. 

I searched the site with the intent on finding articles about impact climate change and steps that can be taken to lessen it's evil. I was surprised and interested to find an article called, "High Flier" by Laurn Blackburn. This article was recently posted on April 25, 2016. It's content consists of the journey of a solar-airplane pilot as he completes a risky flight across the Pacific ocean. It was news to me that solar-airplanes were in the process of existence. Image how helpful it would be to our environment if all air-planes were solar powered. The harmful fuels let into the atmosphere would be greatly decreased. This solar-airplane took off from Hawaii on April 21st and safely landed in Mountain view California 3 days later. Swiss pilot, Bertrand Piccard had been practicing flying this solar plane, Solar Impulse 2, around the globe.  After a few more trips around the U.S., Solar Impulse 2 plans to venture across the Atlantic Ocean. To read more on this extraordinary topic, refer to the article here.
Individuals have been doing their part to save the Earth at least one day a year since April 22, 1970, according to Claudia Atticot and Alexandra Manning's article "Earth day". "The average American produces more than four pounds of garbage per day. Over the course of a year, that is more than 1,600 pounds of garbage per person". on the bright side, recycling has increased from less than 10% in 1980 to more than 34% in 2011. "Every year, Americans throw away enough paper and enough plastic cups, forks, and spoons to circle the equator 300 times." This article provides individuals with a number of shocking facts that can encourage anyone to try to make a helpful difference in the world. To read more about "Earth Day", click here.
In connection to Climate change, there are a number of articles on TIME for kids regarding natural

disasters that have been taking place. When discussion global warming and climate change in the classroom it is inevitable that the topic of natural disasters will come up.  Due to the changing climate, floods, fires, and threatening storms have been sweeping the nation. I chose to read a article titled, "Kansas Fights Record Wildfire". I chose this article because it hits close to home. Recently, nearby to my town of New Paltz, a wildfire broke out and has been destroying a beautiful natural preserve for days now. So far 3,000 acres of land has vanished. I would chose discuss this topic in class understanding that many students are being affected by it.This image shows the flames that have been burning for three days at Sam's Point preserve. According to the article about Kansas' wildfire, "nearly 400,000 acres of land have burned in Kansas since early last week, in the worst wildfire in the state’s history". To read more about Kansas' fight to put out there flames, you can read the article here.

"Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master" -Christian Lous Lang

Previously, I discussed examples of interactive websites that can be used to advance the classroom learning experience. In this post,i would like to share my examples for work created through each website and discuss my likes and dislikes.



TagCrowd :

Originally we found TagCrowd difficult
to use. We were unsure what to do. After
play around with it for awhile, we discovered
how simple it actually was. This website does
all the "hard work" for you. Instead of
re-reading articles or text to find key words,
TagCrowd can do it for you. In addition,
TagCrowd creates a word cloud for you to
display the significant or repeated words from
the selected text. For example,our word cloud was based off of a large number of astronomy
based articles. Our key words consisted of
Earth, stars, light-years, galaxy, universe, mass,
spacecraft, telescope, astronomers, and so on.




  Tkik-Toki :

Although also a struggle to get used to at first,
Tiki-Toki allowed us to create a time line of a
few astronomically events throughout history.
We were able to create a planet filled background, text to support our time stops,
and images. The image displays our example timeline in the 2D option.




ThingLink :

ThingLink was rather easy to get the hang of.
It was fun to put our ThingLink presentation
together. I enjoyed the ability to add images,
videos, and games right onto the presentation.
We created a ThingLink to teach a lesson on
the layers of the atmosphere. We provided
text, resources, images, diagrams, a video,
and a fun interactive game that allowed the
class to guess what occurs in each layer of the
atmosphere.   




Kahoot! :

Kahoot is simple to use. You can sign up
for free and begin creating a quiz, discussion,
or servery instantly at GetKahoot!. We created
a Kahoot based off of our Atmosphere lesson.
This  fun, competitive quiz allows us to see how
well the class received the information taught to
them. after each question is answered, we are
able to view how many individuals chose each
possible answer vs. how many chose the correct
answer. 

Life was much easier when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits...

In case you haven't read in earlier posts how much technology frustrates me, I'll tell you now, it FRUSTRATES ME! Losing your work after hours of completing it, passwords, passwords, PASSWORDS, freezing, virus', complicated websites, and what do you do if there's a blackout? ...PANIC! As it states in my title, life was much easier when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits. Unfortunately for me, you can not escape the use of technology. Throughout this semester, I have been exposed to many ways to use technology in the classroom as a tool for learning. Some of the websites we used to create presentations are as follows:

TagCrowd :

This resource allows you to copy and
paste text, click visualize, and then 
view the most redundant words
from that particular source. this can be
a useful tool to find vocabulary words,
topics to stress on, and terms for further
discussion.






Tiki-Toki :

This websites creates interactive web-based
timelines that can be presented in 2D or 3D.
It allows the creator to create a background
image as well as a picture for each timeline
event. In addition, information regarding the
event may also be posted. Timelines are
important tools in students learning and can
only advance their understanding. 





ThingLink :

ThingLink encourages its users to create
interactive, engaging presentations. These
presentations can consist of images, text,
resources, websites, interactive games,and
videos. This tool allows you to take a
normal, boring power-point lesson and turn
it into a more exciting and visually pleasing
presentation.





 Kahoot! / GetKahoot! :

GetKahoot allows it's user to create, play, and
share fun learning games for any age and for
any subject. Kahoot is the website students visit
in order to participate in the interactive game
that was previously created through GetKahoot.
this resources is not only fun for its participants,
but it allows the instructor to see if the students
are understanding the topic, what they need
more practice on, or if they can use a challenge.

Teacher: a person who helps you solve problems you'd never have without them

Even though technology is not my friend, I have definitely grown to fear it a little less over the course of the semester. It was a terrifying experience hearing sighs of disappointment and frustration at the other side of the room as fellow students lost their entire presentation due to one of the downfalls of technology. It is a risky tool to use and nobody wants to re do all their hard work when they have half a syllabus of assignments still waiting for their attention. Technology will never be something I feel I can depend on, but on occasion, it can help capture the little attention span that exists in your students. I had the opportunity to explore ThingLink. This website guides it users to create interactive, aesthetically pleasing presentations. It's great if you want to take a break from boring power points and create a more exciting atmosphere for learning.  You can sign up for ThingLink for free or become a member and receive access to more tools and elements. My group created a ThingLink presentation about the Layers of Earths Atmosphere. Our presentation can viewed at "Earth's Atmosphere Has Layers Like an Ogre". Each colorful circle leads the presentation to information, interactive games, videos, and pictures.

other sites that were explored by other students were:

• Glogster
• Thing Link
• Powtoon
• VennGage
• LetterPop
• WebPoster
• more on infographics
• Cooltoolsforschools

"I'm so hot, I'm the leading cause of Global Warming"

"Only in America do we accept weather predictions from a rodent, but deny climate change evidence from scientists". 

"Welcome to the land where you can get sunburn and frostbite in the same week". 

"So, you don't believe in scientist when they talk about global climate change... but you will prep for the Apocalypse when those same scientist mention El Nino

"Climate change is just a meteor that arrives in 2050."

These are just a few examples of Climate Change memes that can be found all over the internet. It is a topic of tremendous debate world wide. Politicians have their differences in priorities, Environmental conservationists have their position, Scientist state their claims, and society is constantly flip flopping. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is that not enough people are educated on the difference between climate and weather, or on climate change in general. Some individuals live in a world where they are sheltered from the harm that is done to the environment, many people just don't care, and others have suffered from pollution and toxic environments throughout their lives. When people show unawareness of the severity of the effects of pollution and toxins in the environment, I always suggest they watch the documentary; "Gasland" by Josh Fox. Although it is not a film directly about climate change, it gives people a dramatic look into how humans can strongly impact the environment. To the right is a clip from Gasland, the film in it's entirety is available to view on YouTube if you click the link.

It is very difficult to break people of their misconceptions. Society hears so much information on a daily bases. They learn one thing at school, hear something else from their parents, a new story from their peers, and read something different on the internet. This makes it difficult for people to decipher fact from fiction. When trying to educate people, it is important to be sensitive to their misconceptions, but also guide them to walk away with the truth and knowledge they deserve. Nobody wants to hear they should change their lifestyle. Life is hard enough! "I need my car to get to work and class and the gym and the store, it's not possible to use less gas. I need my hairspray to not look like a frizzy monster, so I can find a guy, get married, and have a family. Now you are going to take these things away from me?! Why are you blaming me?! I'm just one person!" In addition society may misinterpret information or be swayed by other individuals. For example, this video show how individuals can get carried away by their misconceptions or misinterpretations. 

As a Science teacher it is critical to inforce the importance of the subject, give students insightful knowledge, allow kids to discover things on their, always supply evidence, and encourage the next generation to make the best choice for themselves and the world around them.  

Let us pause for a moment of Science

Is there always a right or wrong answer to every question? Science tells us, there is not. As a class we were asked to discover this through an inquiry lesson taught by Mrs. F. We were handed a regular piece of scrap paper and told "make the paper fall slowly and accurately". Without any other form of direction, we hesitated and looked around the room curious to see who would make the first move. Nobody wanted to be "wrong". I felt there had to be a correct answer. If there wasn't, why would she ask us to do it? Mrs. F wanted to show us how a good inquiry lesson is presented. An inquiry lesson allows students to create their own answers and pose new questions. They are able to create new knowledge and understanding through experimentation, observation, and discovery. Completing this activity left myself and my classmates with both answers and new questions. Although my piece of paper fell slowly and accurately 4 out 5 times, it still wasn't perfect. It wasn't the "answer". Following our lesson on inquiry, the class was introduced to the complicated task of grading. Mrs. F explained to us the importance of knowing your students. She showed us examples of student plagiarism, and the work of a child with emotional disorders. If a teacher doesn't take the time to get to know their students, they may not take this into account when grading. A good teacher knows the work that the child is capable of completing and grades them and takes this into consideration when grading. The class with Mrs. F gave me probably the best insight i have an in my educational experience so far. She seems like a very passionate, knowledgeable, and caring teacher. I aspire to be like her in the future and even in my classroom right now.