We had a great time hosting our teacher’s workshop where we got to showcase fun, new activities to use in the club or classroom setting. For the middle school and high school students we shifted our focus toward engineering by showing the teachers an algal lab where the students can design what they think is an optimal place for algae to grow. For the elementary school students the focus was on ecology and geology, which lead to some awesome hands on activities. All of these activities and those showcased in the workshop can be found below. Thanks again for joining us this year and please feel free to share your comments on the activities we provided.
During our August Teacher’s Workshop, teachers spent an afternoon at Hesthavn Nature Center learning about watershed stewardship projects. They rotated through various stations in order to gain ideas for creating projects back in their schools. These stations included riparian, macroinvertebrates, water quality, photopoint monitoring, plant identification, and the StreamWebs database. You can find all of the resources that were shared on the StreamWebs resources web page: http://www.streamwebs.org/resources.
Curriculum for the plant identification portion of the StreamWebs activities is also available. Click here to access the curriculum.
In addition to the resources that you can find on the StreamWebs site, SMILE has created a limited number of StreamWebs educator kits for SMILE’s teachers to borrow for use in their communities. There are three different kits available: riparian, water quality, and macro invertebrates. See the pictures below for the contents of the kits. If you are interested in taking advantage of this opportunity, please contact Renee O’Neill at renee.oneill@oregonstate.edu.
Do you ever need to boost the energy of your club group? Want to build your group’s teamwork in fun, interactive ways? Check out these team-building activities and icebreakers to make your club meetings more exciting and engaging! Click here to access the activities.
Here’s another awesome activity that we’ll be presenting at our Teachers’ Workshop next week! This is a really fun activity in which students use film canisters to create rockets. Click here to access the lesson plan.
On Ellen’s talkshow, she set off 3,000 film canisters rockets at once! Check it out here:
Next week at our Teacher’s Workshop, Renee O’Neill will be presenting a new set of activities about owls, owl pellets, ecosystems, and food webs for use in at the elementary level. We are very excited about these activities, as they are hands-on, interactive, and fun! Check out the different lessons and components at the links below. We look forward to seeing you at our Workshop!
If you are interested in ordering owl pellets from researcher Rebecca Terry for dissection in your SMILE clubs, please contact Renee O’Neill at renee.oneill@oregonstate.edu.
For centuries, scientists have tried to explain this gravity-defying phenomena. This chain curve, or “fountain”, happens due to the forces acting on the chain, which is explained in the video below. The Royal Society also tries other chains to see if they are capable of creating a fountain. Check it out!
As an addition to the schoolyard geology activities that were shared in Matt Nyman’s session during the Winter 2014 SMILE Teacher’s Workshop, here is a 4-lesson unit on Earth Science that can be done in the classroom.
Jon Roschke, a KidWind Pacific NW WindSenator from Oregon Renewables, shared a great presentation and his expertise on Wind Energy. Using prebuilt turbine towers, teachers explored the science of wind turbine blade design. Take a look at the presentation that Jon included in his workshop!
