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

Although I am the physics and astronomy librarian at Cornell, I do work with science teachers in all areas of science and at all grade levels. If one does a search in the K-12 portion of NSDL, one finds many web sites about the periodic table. It is possible to limit the search to a grade level range.

Just this morning I came across a really neat Periodic Table of Videos from the University of Nottingham.  From the “about” section:  “Tables charting the chemical elements have been around since the 19th century - but this modern version has a short video about each one.

Since launching this site, our videos have been watched more than 4.1 million times.

But we’re not finished yet. We’ve started updating all the videos with new stories, better samples and bigger experiments.”

2009 has been declared the International Year of Astronomy. Keep checking the page listed, as I am sure the resources section will continute to grow.

If you are looking for lesson plans to help celebrate the Year of Astronomy, NASA has a nice collection of materials broken down by grade level.

The Galileo Project also has some nice resources.

intute, a collaborative effort of over 60 institutes of higher learning, the British Library and the British Museum also has some interesting resources.

ThinkQuest is also worth a look.

Kathy Schrock has a list of astronomy links on her page.

Fred Stoss’ “An Astronomical Childrens’ Reader”
http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/Reference/Library/iya/stoss_astronomicalbooksforchildren.html

Concept maps are often useful for faculty as well as students.  The National Science Digital Library has quite a collection of concept maps.  For example, the NSDL Science Literacy Maps cover topics like stars, chemical reactions, and social decisions.  For details, go to:

There is a recent article in Science Scope written for middle schoolers.

“Teacher’s Toolkit: Linking proportionality across the science and mathematics curricula through science literacy maps ” Kerri Richardson, Catherine Matthews, Catherine Thompson. Science Scope. Washington: Nov 2008. Vol. 32, Iss. 3; p. 64 (7 pages)

There are also some sources for mapping the concepts within a discipline.  hyperphysics has been around for while, and it has now expanded to include concept maps for biology, chemistry, and mathematics.  I use them when I am not quite sure where a concept fits into the big picture.