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 […]
Author Archive
prettygoodphysics
Monday, April 13th, 2009 9:27 am
Written by: Pat Viele
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 […]
Posted in Topics: graphics
Middle School Physical Sciences Sources
Thursday, March 26th, 2009 3:36 pm
Written by: Pat Viele
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 […]
Posted in Topics: General
Public TV and Science
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 11:44 am
Written by: Pat Viele
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
Science Lessons for Bilingual Classrooms
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 4:00 pm
Written by: Pat Viele
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 […]
Posted in Topics: General
The National Labs and STEM Educators
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 2:48 pm
Written by: Pat Viele
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/
Posted in Topics: General
Free and Easy Professional Development via TappedIn
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 11:06 am
Written by: Pat Viele
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 […]
Posted in Topics: General
Biology Teachers
Monday, January 19th, 2009 5:18 pm
Written by: Pat Viele
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 […]
Posted in Topics: General
Periodic Tables
Friday, January 9th, 2009 10:21 am
Written by: Pat Viele
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 […]
Posted in Topics: Chemistry
International Year of Astronomy
Friday, December 19th, 2008 1:48 pm
Written by: Pat Viele
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 […]






Posted in Topics: Mathematics
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