There are some freely available newsletters that are very rich resources.  Today I want to introduce you to (or remind you about) the Teachers Clearinghouse for Science and Society Education Newsletter.  The editor of this newsletter, Dr. John L. Roeder, teaches at the Calhoun School in NY City.  Dr. Roeder is a recipient of the Excellence in Pre-College Physics Teaching Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers. He is very active in the field of education.  Dr. Roeder generously summarizes conferences that he attends. He also provides annotated bibliographies in the newsletter feature “Recommended Science and society Educational Resources”.  If you are looking for good resources for teaching about societal issues, I suggest looking at that feature as well as “Reviews of Science and Society Educational Resouces.”

The newsletter is freely available on the web, or one can subscribe to the hard copy for a very modest fee.

 http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~lindenf/pse/index.html?CFID=3192414&CFTOKEN=51748709

My grandchldren and I have been enjoying the cool math games web site (see previous post).  My grandchildren call the Number Twins game the “bubble game”.  There is something very satisfying about popping all the bubbles.

 If you are looking for some games/activities to reinforce physics concepts, here are a few sites to explore.

Physics crossword puzzles are brought to you coutesy of Tony Mangiacapne of St. Mary’s High School, Manhasset, NY. The site also has pod casts, videos and much more.

http://www.stmary.ws/highschool/physics/home/crossword_puzzles/default.htm

Physics Games Net http://www.physicsgames.net/game/Shrink_It.html  offers a game called Shrink It.  The object of the game is to move an octagonal object past barriers by either growing or shrinking them.  I enjoyed it because it made me think. This site has commercial sponsors, so one must view short ads before playing.

The Leon Letteman Education Center at Fermi Lab offers a selection of games including word search and crossword.  http://www.quarked.org/gamezone/moregames.html

 Nobelprize.org also offers a variety of games. http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/physics/

Barbara J. Feldman, a syndacated newspaper columnist, offers Surfing the Net with Kids. http://www.surfnetkids.com/ She includes science games on her web page.

The Space Weather Center offers Magneto Mini Golf.  http://www.spaceweathercenter.org/our_protective_shield/01/minigolf.html

While waiting in a doctor’s office, I had an interesting conversation with a remedial math teacher.  He feels strongly that students must master the basics by 3rd grade.  Working with flash cards is not the most exciting thing to do. If you can disguise drill as a game it becomes more interesting.  I did some snooping and found some games that drill on math concepts but are also fun.

 Aplus math games offers MATHO, a combination of math and bingo, hidden pictures, and concentration among others.

http://www.aplusmath.com/Games/index.html

 Cool math games offers number twins, math lins and jigsaw puzzles, among others. 

http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-pool-geometry-2/index.html

Recently, I have been exploring the use of social software to support teaching.  One example of this is the prettygoodphysics wiki. The wiki is maintained by Paul Lulai.  In correspondence with me, Paul said:  “Please invite as many others as possible to use the site.  I’d like to make sure it is known that while I help maintain the site, the contents are really created and uploaded by other members.  We started the site as a way to share ap physics materials.  Most (not all) of the site’s visitors, members and folks sharing files are ap physics teachers.  Many of the files are appropriate for a wide variety of high school physics or college freshman physics courses.”

Many times I have had teachers comment, “I wish I had easy access to graphics like circuits.  If I didn’t have to draw them each time, my life would be easier!” 

prettygoodphysics has a collection of graphics  (PGP clipart in the left hand column).  Check it out.

http://prettygoodphysics.wikispaces.com/

At the Monday meeting of the Physics and Physical Sciences Group in TappedIn, we had requests for web sites suitable for middle school students. Here are some of the sites we viewed.

The Physics Front.org K-12 resources http://www.compadre.org/precollege/static/topic.cfm?course=1

Science Games.org

http://www.scigames.org/

Science Teaching Tips

http://www.exploratorium.edu/ti/podcasts/index.php

Exploratorium Snacks

http://exploratorium.edu/snacks/

Physics and Everyday Thinking

http://petproject.sdsu.edu/

Sciencegeekgirl

http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/sciencegeekgirl/

Cool Stuff from Arbor Scientific

http://www.arborsci.com/

Pretty Good Physics Wiki

 http://prettygoodphysics.wikispaces.com/

Discover Science, Technology and the Future http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/

Several televsion stations have developed science portals. The portals have information for both faculty and students. Here are some examples.

KNME developed a Science Central web portal that promotes all KNME Science Central events and outreach activities.

http://www.knme.org/sciencecentral/

WGBH Boston

http://www.wgbh.org/kids/parents/eds

 BBC Schools

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/

Public TV Canada

http://www.sd61.bc.ca/learnres/Edu/TV.html

Yesterday I had the pleasure of demonstrating some web resources, via TappedIn for several elementary school teachers. Some of them expressed interest in science materials for their class rooms which have both English and Spanish speaking students. Here are some sites of interest.

Kids Science News Network
http://ksnn.larc.nasa.gov/home.html

Science News for Kids
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/pages/about.asp

Paso Partners (K-3)
http://www.sedl.org/scimath/pasopartners/senses/

National Center for English Language Acquisition
http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/practice/lessons/4_sci.htm

Cool Cosmos at Cal Tech
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/index.html

The Inclusive Classroom (report)
http://www.nwrel.org/msec/images/resources/justgood/11.99.pdf

National Institute of Health
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih2/oral-health/guide/index.htm

Shedd Aquarium
http://www.sheddaquarium.org/sea/fact_sheets.cfm?id=103

The Island of the Blue Dolphins
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/dolphin/home2.shtml

Climate Change Education. Com
http://www.climatechangeeducation.org/k-12_schools/espanol.html

Climate and Global Change
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/climate/climate.html&edu=elem

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of touring the Fermi National Lab. I then go thinking about all of the educational resources that reside on web sites at the national labs. Here I will reveal those locations.

Argonne National Lab
http://www.anl.gov/Careers/Education/rube/

Brookhaven National Lab
http://www.bnl.gov/education/

Fermi Lab
http://ed.fnal.gov/index.shtml

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
http://www.lbl.gov/Education/

Los Alamos National Lab
http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/cpo/education_programs/programs_partnerships.shtml

Oak Ridge National Lab
http://www.ornl.gov/ornlhome/education.shtml

Pacific Northwest National Lab
http://science-ed.pnl.gov/

While preparing for a talk on how technology can support new and cross-over physics teachers, I came across the TappedIn system. The purpose of TappedIn is to make it easy for educators to share materials and participate in professional development sessions. I urge you to check it out. http://tappedin.org/tappedin/

Last evening, I spent an interesting hour taking a guided tour of various educational materials offered by the National Aeronautical Institute. I will cover some of the highlights here.

The first stop was their dedicated YouTube collection. Many teachers use these videos as a way of stimulating students to write. They show the clip, dicuss it with the class, and then have the students write about it. There are four categories: Our World is geared for grades K-5, Real World Math is for grades 6-8, NASA Launch Pad is for grades 9-12, and NASA 360 is for the General Public. Each section has multiple videos.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/nasaeclips/index.html

You can create your own set of bookmarks within the NASA portal. You will see login to MyNASA right below the NASA meatball logo.

21st Century Explorer is another segment of the NASA portal. It has 12 lesson plans that are connected to short videos, national educational standards, and they are all available in a Spanish version.

http://education.jsc.nasa.gov/explorers/

Another section of the NASA Portal has SciFiles. These programs are written as Problem Based Learning. The educator guide has between 40 and 50 hands-on experiments

http://scifiles.larc.nasa.gov/educators/index.html

There is more, but I don’t want to go into overkill. Bear in mind that I was relaxing at my desk while I was taking this guided tour. I was able to ask questions and get immediate answers. Demonstrations are scheduled in advance and reminders are sent out. You also get a transcript of the session. I must admit I found that handy for reference as I typed this entry.

I urge you to try both TappedIn and the NASA Portal.

Cheers,
Pat

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of meeting with biology teachers who were on the Cornell campus for a Cornell Institute of Biology Teachers (CIBT) event. I share with you here that handout that I gave the attendees.

Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers
http://cibt.bio.cornell.edu/

Discovery Channel

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/category/scie1.html

Classroom Clipart

http://classroomclipart.com/Science.htm

About.com: Chemistry Science Clipart

http://chemistry.about.com/od/imagesclipartstructures/ig/Science-Clipart/

Coolclips

http://dir.coolclips.com/Science/Chemistry/

Clipart etc.

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/index.htm

Awesome Clipart for Educators
http://www.awesomeclipartforeducators.com/

Connotea is a free service from The Nature Publishing Group. It allows one to created a virtual filling cabinet that is easily shared with others. One can sort on any of the “tags” or keywords on the left side of the screen. I have collected these materials in response to real questions from science teachers.

Pat’s Connotea Collection K-12 Lesson Plans
http://www.connotea.org/user/pviele/tag/k-12

Pat’s Connotea Collection Careers in Science
http://www.connotea.org/user/pviele/tag/careers

TappedIn
Tapped In is a free Web-based learning environment created by SRI
International to transform teacher professional development (TPD) for
professional development providers and educators. Tapped In enables
providers to offer high-quality online professional development
experiences and support to more teachers cost-effectively. Through
Tapped In, educators can extend their professional growth beyond courses
or workshops with the online tools, resources, colleagues, and support
they need to implement effective, classroom-centered learning activities.
The Science Resources K-12 group is a goldmine of information.
You can set up a time for a volunteer to give you a tour of the system.
http://tappedin.org/tappedin/

Welcome to the Internet for Biosciences (tutorial)
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/biosciences

About.com: Biology
http://biology.about.com/od/biologylessonplans/Biology_Lesson_Plans.htm

LC Science Tracer Bullet Biotechnology
http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/tracer-bullets/biotechnologytb.html