Category: Teacher’s Workshop
From the January Teachers’ Workshop:
Here are the materials associated with the Renewable Energy and Wind Turbine kit lesson (presented by Brian Hartman, PhD Candidate in Education):
Renewable Wind Energy Presentation
SONY DSC
From our January Teachers’ Workshop:
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:
This first video describes the set-up for the Ponds in Peril experiment, a great tool to use with your students.
This second video is a great overview of the entire project!
Ponds in Peril Full Worksheet Package
Powerpoints: Project Overview, Food Web Review, Aquatic Macroinvertebrates, Nutrient Pollution and Invaders, and The Process of Science
From our January Teachers’ Workshop:
We heard from Dr. David Ji, an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department at OSU. Below are the materials that we shared with you:
Energy Storage in the 21st Century – This is Dr. Ji’s powerpoint presentation.
Understanding Batteries & Capacitors Lesson Plan – This is the lesson plan created by SMILE and shared with you at the workshop.
Battery Activity Introductory Powerpoint – This is a powerpoint presentation created by SMILE that can be used to introduce the topic of batteries and how they work as well as the above activity.
Battery Types – This is an excel spreadsheet that can be used for an extensional activity where students explore different types of batteries and their applications.
We will be holding the summer teacher’s workshop Aug 9-11. The bioenergy activities will focus on renewable energy. Bioenergy is a part of the complete renewable energy picture, but how do you choose which option makes the most sense. We will kick off the workshop by exploring best practices for engineering design projects, Designing Engineers Activity. Then, look at what it takes to power a house that is off the grid. We will use geographic information systems (GIS) to determine whether its makes sense to use Trees or Solar Panels for the renewable energy source. This will lead into design of the house to optimize solar panels and solar heating through the Solar City Activity. Finally, we will take a deep dive into optimizing solar photo-voltaic panels for maximum output with the Shocking Solar Activity. We hope to see you at the workshop.
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.
Natures Notebook:
Introduction to Graphing Lesson
High School SMILE teachers, we need your help! In preparation for the April High School Challenge event, we have a survey about bioenergy in your communities. We would like this survey to be filled out by you and your students and returned before Spring Break. The survey and additional documentation can be found below. You can return surveys by emailing Renee O’Neill (renee.oneill@oregonstate.edu) the data in the excel sheet, sending the hard copy originals via standard mail, or scanning in your surveys and emailing them as PDFs. Whatever format you choose is fine, as long as we can see the data and are able interpret the results for the SMILE High School Challenge. Please also send a copy of the complete survey your students use to help us interpret the data.
At the 2015 Winter Teacher’s Workshop, elementary teachers continued to focus on ecology. Teachers were fortunate to work with researcher and professor in the department of integrative biology, Mark Novak. A seven lesson unit focused around streams and macroinvertebrates was shared during this session. Novak provided an overview presentation that can help with understanding the concepts included in these lessons.
Build-a-Bug allows students work in pairs to create macroinvertebrates with adaptations that would allow them to survive in a habitat. This supplemental PowerPoint gives students the necessary background information for this lesson plan.
Home, Home, in a Stream is an activity in which students create mock streams containing the same habitats that they built their bugs for.
In the activity Macro Feeding Frenzie (along with this PowerPoint) students use various tools to collect a variety of ‘food’, which models the different feeding styles and the accompanying adaptations.
Macro Mayhem allows students to play an exciting game to help them understand how pollution impacts the biodiversity of macroinvertebrates found in a stream ecosystem.
In Biodiversity in a Leaf Pack, students create micro-habitats that will attract macroinvertebrates and place them local streams to collect organisms.
With the activity Analyzing a Leaf Pack, students collect leaf packs and analyze their findings.
Hungry, Hungry Macros allows students to use the macros collected from leaf packs and perform an experiment to determine whether shredders or grazers will eat more leaf material.
During the Winter Teacher’s Workshop, SMILE Elementary Club teachers were introduced to lessons and content around the topics of coral reefs and ocean acidification.
In the first lesson on coral reefs, Coral Reef Diversity, students are introduced to coral reef ecosystems, the importance of coral, and adaptations coral has made to live in a unique habitat. In the second, Coral Skeletons, students learn how coral shells are formed and the impact of climate change has had on coral reef ecosystems worldwide. In the final lesson, Thermal Expansion, students learn about how warming waters affect the ocean ecosystem.
This presentation on coral reefs was shared by PhD Student Katherine Dziedzic from the Department of Integrative Biology.
In the first lesson on ocean acidification, Whale Jenga, students learn about how changes in the food web might impact the ocean ecosystem. In the second, Lego Shell Building, students are to explore how ocean acidification may make it harder for corals to grow shells. In the third lesson, Marine Osteoporosis, students learn about the effects of acidic oceans on certain marine organisms and the causes of ocean acidification. In the fourth lesson, Ocean Acidification Car Activity, students find out how the burning of fossil fuels in automobiles can introduce CO2 to seawater causing acidification. In the final lesson, Ocean Acidification Demo the students observe first hand CO2 being absorbed into water.
The following presentations on ocean acidification were shared by the Olympic Coast Marine Sanctuary as part of the workshop ocean acidification:
