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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Navigating the FOSS website....

This weekend I had the great opportunity to work for Delta/FOSS at the Virginia Association of Science Teachers Workshop.  I was able to present on Science Notebooks as well as how using Inquiry Science has helped raise my Reading Scores. 

While there, I talked to several teachers who wanted some help navigating the FOSS website.Right now we are in transition from the current website to the newer third edition site.  The third edition site is available for free right now, but will soon be only available to teachers using the new program.  I will talk about that website on another day.  Today I will talk about the current website and all the FREE resources.  So, here it is...

First, go to www.fossweb.com.

Wow - there is so much to see!  On the left hand side, you can find all the current news, newsletters and professional development activities available.

At the bottom of the left hand side is a box that says: Beyond the Classroom  This is where you can find a lot of good information about Outdoor Education.
 Outdoor Biology Instructional Strategies     Taking FOSS Outdoors  These are both really good initiatives that are research based and full of information.  FOSS feels very strongly about outdoor education and use "Last Child in the Woods" as it's research base. 

On the right side is the grade level section. It is broken into K-2, 3-5 and Middle School. 

Once you open up your grade level, you will see icons that match all of our modules. There are so many wonderful, research based units developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science and Dr. Lawrence Lowery. 

Okay, so now - pick a module.  I will walk you through Magnetism and Electricity - but all the modules have the same components.

imagesOn the right side you see...Activities, Media Resources and For Parents and Teachers.  The Activities section has interactive computer games that you can use on your smart board, projector or individually on the computer.  My students love these games and we even play the ones in the K-2 section as well...

Media Resources includes images, movies, audio stories, at the library and websites. This section also has vocabulary resources in Spanish and English as well as an Ask the Scientist section that answers many content related questions you may have.

Tomorrow, I will explore For Teachers and Parents.  There is so much there I need a whole blog to describe it all. 




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