Prayers for Newtown

Another school shooting. What can you do?

1. Examine your school's Disaster Preparedness Plan (parents and teachers).

2. Hug your family a little tighter and Thank God for their continued safety.

Remember, you can't legislate crazy people away.

Please take time out of your day to pray for the town of Newtown, CT.

Vote For TeachersPayTeachers.com!

They want to win a Crunchie for best Education Startup. I agree they should.

Vote now!

Huge sale at TeachersPayingTeachers.com!

Click on the banner below and you will get a HUGE discount on items in my catalogue. The TPT website is taking 8% off all prices while I am taking an extra 20% off of my prices. Remember to use the promo code: CMT12. Click and save!





                     

Parents!

This specifically for the parents. It is nearing the end of the calendar year. Please, please, PLEASE contact your children's teacher if you have been putting it of. No matter how young or old they are, it is always a good idea to chat withe their teacher about them. Don't expect the teacher to contact you all the time.

On top of it just being a good precaution, the school year is nearly half over. Now would be a good time to ensure your kids doing well and not on the verge of flunking. Christmas Break is a great time to catch up on any reading or math skills they are behind on.

Remember, it is you that is ultimately responsible for your childs' education.

Apps for Common Core?

"There's an app for that." There's an app for everything, so why should education be different? I've come across some decent apps for the Common Core Standards. Oh yeah, they are free.

Common Core by MasteryConnect for Android.

Common Core by MasteryConnect for iPod, etc.


Feel free to try them out and you can have copies of the Common Core Standards wherever you go.

Integrated Science

I teach a course called Integrated Science. It is a college prep level course in CA that is tested during the CST’s in the Spring. While it doesn’t satisfy the A-G requirement for a Lab science (it should), it is a great course to teach high school freshmen. 

Our department had noticed about 4 years ago that a lot of freshmen coming into high school lacked an acceptable science background. Some of it had to do with a large migrant population, some of it was language issues and some had to do with the quality of their Elementary school education. We began looking for a course that would fill in this gap in their science education.

Integrated Science I (there are 4 different courses recognized by CA) requires you to teach 1 quarter of Biology, 1 quarter of Chemistry, 1 quarter of Physics and 1 quarter of Earth Science. It is a challenge to be sure, but I absolutely love it. After spending a few years developing the curriculum for our site, it has shown itself to be an incredible investment.

The way we structured it was that all freshmen not taking Honors or GATE level science must be enrolled in Integrated Science. We have “integrated” the scientific method, Lab Reports, outdoor education and many other concepts into this course. We have seen a marked improvement in the upper level science courses such as Chemistry and Biology since we expose the students to many of their introductory concepts so early. For example, instead of “introducing” the Periodic Table during their Chemistry course, they “review” the Periodic Table. Much, much faster.

The course is working out very well for us and I encourage you to investigate further if would like your students understanding of science to increase. Just how the Next Generation Science Standards will affect is not known, but it has been absolutely worth it for my school.

Problems With Standards in High School Biology

            The current CA Biology/Life Science Standards have some very large “gaps.” While I have always been a big proponent of having Standards, the gaps have been a big problem for me. Perhaps no bigger gap exists than the lack of proper Standards that deal with plant anatomy and physiology.

            I have a degree in a plant-related subject and have studied plants a great deal in my prior career and I am an avid gardener. I admit to being very biased on this subject. They are an absolutely vital part of our existence. Still, the only Standards we’ve had in CA that specifically covers plants deals with photosynthesis. [OK, you can make the leap that genetics can cover plants, but it is not specific to them.] So when the Next Generation Science Standards Framework came out, I was excited to see how such an important concept would be handled.

            Sadly, my excitement was short-lived. Though it reads like stereo instructions, I cannot find much material covering plant science during the high school years. There are some minor plant concepts covered in the lower grades (some already exist, too) but nothing too deep or meaningful. 

            This year, my department chair and I have been discussing how we can get more plant material into our curriculum. Many of the students in our small community will spend the rest of their lives working in agriculture. Our plan is to integrate plant anatomy and physiology into our Post-STAR test curriculum. It should make for a good research project and an insightful Lab Report activity (as required by the new Common Core English Standards). 

            By the way, you may be under the impression that Agriculture classes would be picking up the slack as far as plant education goes. Nope. Many high schools don’t even have an Agriculture department. Those that do tend to focus on animal husbandry, etc. 

                                   

Linking Tragedy to Learning

The devastation of Hurricane Sandy is widespread across the east coast. But what does that mean to students on the west coast, most of which have never experienced a hurricane? Many just think of it as a really bad rain storm.

As much as we don't want to scare our students, it is very important that they understand what has taken place, how people and cities have been impacted. It is also important for them to understand how the weather is predictable. They were talking about Sandy and its impact at least a week before it happened.

For the lower grades, I suggest spending some time helping them to understand how the weather can be predicted. There are some great websites to help out. The United States Search and Rescue Task Force has a great website about weather that makes it easy to understand. EdHeads has a wonderful website about predicting weather as an activity.

For high schoolers, you may want to go a step further. Especially on the west coast, we have earthquakes, which can cause even greater devastation and we have no ability to predict them. You don't want to scare the kids, but it is important that they understand the risks. One of my favorite earthquake websites is the Earthquake Tracker  from the United States Geological Survey. It tracks and catalogs all earthquakes around the world in real time. Or you can zoom in to your specific area.

Don't miss out on a great learning opportunity! The media is talking more about this event right now than the election in a few days.

You could even throw some information into your lesson about being prepared for disasters.

Names??!!

Have you ever noticed some of the odd names parents are going with these days? Do you think it might be setting them up for failure? Sure, “Barak” is not exactly main stream, but it is an ethnic name well represented in other nations. I’m thinking more of the “made up” names like “Amfernee” and “Astrolia” or the ones that are named after other nouns like “Apple” of “Pinecone.” 

Please understand, I’m not trying to make fun of people’s names, but I’ve noticed some odd ones among my students over the years it seems like the ones with really odd names usually have the most trouble in class. Is it just me?

                                 

Science and The Common Core Standards

Did you know the new Common Core Standards are not just for Math and ELA? There are components that should be addressed in Social Studies and Science as well. Get more information here.

This is the Beginning.....

"This is my rifle blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle blog is my best friend creative outlet. It is [part of] my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle blog, without me, is useless. Without my rifle blog, I am useless have more free time. I must fire write my rifle blog true often. I must shoot write straighter more information than my enemy fellow blogger who is trying to kill get higher visitor counts than me. I must shoot him blog before he shoots me blogs. And I will."

There, I fixed that quote from "Full Medal Jacket." I am a high school science teacher which, contrary to popular belief, doesn't require a firearm yet. It doesn't require a blog either, but it helps.


This blog is dedicated to the teaching of high school science in a way that reaches the most students and covers the most Standards. I've been teaching for over 8 years and my main focus has been the CA Science Standards. Every lecture, every handout and every assessment is linked to a CA Science Standard.Some of these lessons will be available for download or purchase. Some I will just talk about. I look forward to your feedback either way. Hopefully I'll make some friends in this blogosphere and I can share their links, as well.