We heard from Dan Preston, a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Integrative Biology. He presented a Ponds in Peril activity, and here are the materials we’d like to share with you:
Monroe SMILE club students engineered stream ecosystems to meet the specific adaptations of the macroinvertebrates that they designed. Once their streams were complete they added water to test their work! Check out their creativity!
During the August SMILE teachers workshop we spent an entire day learning about Oregon’s geology, hazards, and preparedness. All of the lesson materials shared were connected to NGSS with a specific focus on Cross Cutting Concepts. Check out some of the fun activities:
During an elementary session, teachers learned about riparian systems and their importance to birds and other organisms and we built model ecosystems. Here are the lesson plans that support these concepts:
At the May Teacher’s Workshop held at the HJ Andrews Forest, SMILE teachers learned about how field investigations connect to NGSS Practices. Teachers focused more specifically on how to help students develop questions, set up an investigation, and analyze and interpret the data that they collected. Below is the materials shared during this session.
One of our SMILE clubs was featured in the Woodburn Independent Newspaper! SMILE club advisor Dave Ellingson and his students created an archaeological exhibit in the Woodburn Public Library to showcase some of bones of extinct animals found in Woodburn. Read all about it in this article!
April showers bring May flowers right? Well how exactly do we measure such a thing? This article describes this processes. But why do we care? Right now throughout Oregon many cities are experiencing a drought while others are not. For cities that are, how much rain do you normally get this time of year? How many inches of rain would you need to catch up? For those that are not experiencing a drought, how much rain are you experiencing? These are great questions to ask your students.
The Earth is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old, but what does that mean? To students this can be difficult to put in perspective. How does this compare to their own lifetime? TED-Ed puts it all in perspective in the following video:
Are you a fan of TED Talks? TED-Ed has put together an interactive periodic table comprised of their videos; this can be seen here. This could be a great resource for your students. Not only does TED-Ed talk about the properties of multiple elements, they also run experiments in several of their videos. Check it out!
