SeaTurtle Time - Real World Data in the Classroom

Recently I had the opportunity to go to the NSTA regional conference in Richmond, Va. There I met up with Megan from the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher.  Fort Fisher is a beautiful aquarium near Wilmington, NC.  Coincidentally I once attended a wedding at the sister site near Nags Head when my children were little.  I have fond memories of the boys at the shark tank during cocktail hour. They were mesmerized by the sharks, the turtles and the touch tank.

I attended her session that was entitled Sea Turtles.
Now, some of you who have followed my blog know about my dear turtle Squirtle.  Squirtle is an aquatic turtle and not a sea turtle - he lives in our tank in the classroom and is a beloved classroom pet.

In her session she introduced us to her beloved turtle passion.  You see, at this aquarium they monitor sea turtles - loggerhead, green sea turtles and  leatherback.  Megan has developed an AMAZING sea turtle curriculum that is FREE for teachers. I highly recommend that you check it out at http://seaturtleexploration.com/ .  On her website you will find lesson plans, video links and even virtual lessons.  Some examples of the lesson plans include:

Sea Turtle Hatchling - the kids will create a turtle hatchling out of rocks. Then they will learn how to measure the hatchling like a real turtle scientist. I can't wait to do this with my kids.  I have bought the rocks and have the glue guns ready to go! They will love this.





                                         Another really cool lesson is You make the Crawl. 
In this lesson the kids make tracks in salt dough to represent the tracks the Sea Turtles take when building their nests.  I think this is great because the children get to create it for others to guess what it is.

She also showed us a real sea turtle shell and taught us about the sea turtle's form and function.

This website has so many things on it that you can use all year!  The part I took home an implemented the very next day was the tracking of a hatchling over the course of a year.

So,this already is enough to get me excited! What a great resource of lessons that are developed in an engaging, real world context. But the next part is what really got me out of my seat....

Every year the aquarium keeps two hatchlings left over from the bottom of the nest.  These turtles become "mascots' for a year.  The scientists research and study their growth and development.  After a year at the aquarium, they are released into the ocean as a yearling.

While they are at the aquarium, however, your students can "adopt" them.  Yes, adopt them!!! (virtually, of course)  In the lesson From Hatchling to Yearling you can find out how to adopt either Turtle A or Turtle B and observe their growth all year long.  At the aquarium the scientists measure the hatchlings each Wednesday and then Megan writes a blog each Thursday.  The kids will see how their turtle is growing and they will learn about what's going on at the aquarium.  For instance, this week we learned about Junebug a three flipper sea turtle.  They were so excited to see the infrared photos from the nighttime journey!

In my class, we adopted Turtle A.  As a class we brainstormed names for the turtle - which brought up a question....do we know if it is a girl or a boy?  We emailed Megan who answered us quickly and described that it takes years to figure out the sex of the turtle (male turtles have longer tails eventually than female). While Megan voted for the name Rosie, the children eventually chose Chris.

We set up a data station in the room where we can track the turtle's growth.  I printed off a few pictures from the website and then created two graphs for data collection - a bar graph for length and a line graph for mass.

In Virginia we need to learn to create two types of graphs in math and in science. They understand bar graphs pretty easily, but line graphs are another matter.  I have also noticed that once they learn how to create the graph, they may not understand how to analyze and interpret it.  Why? Perhaps because we don't put it in a real world context. That is why when I saw this I jumped on it!  I can not wait to see where this will lead us this year.

On another note, check out the cute turtle we made out of a pumpkin!

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Bird Treats for the Winter

Just before Christmas break, we spent some time creating bird feeders for our local birds.  Let me warn you...it did create a MESS on the floor.  However, my students were wonderful helpers with the clean up and graciously borrowed brooms from other classes to sweep it all up in no time!

Here's what we started with:

We made two bird feeders.  The first one was the typical pinecone feeder with a twist.  Because so many students have peanut allergies, I couldn't use peanut butter as the spread.  Instead we used shortening - generic for crisco. The crisco was much cheaper than peanut butter too!!! The students started with yarn and tied it around the pinecone, spread crisco on the cone and then dipped it in the birdseed. 

 

The next one was really fun...old fashioned popcorn strings with a twist!

Instead of using thread and a needle, we used wire from the craft store.  The kids could easily string the popcorn on the wire and no risk of getting cut!

 

Parents sent in popped corn for us to use.  They sent in a ton of popcorn!

 

After we finished, we took them outside and hung them on our local trees for winter break.

 

 

 

Hope you can use this too!

 

 

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Owl Pellets

Something about the fall makes me want to connect with nature.  You may have seen my previous blog about spiders...today, I'm into Owls...

I love to teach about owls and do so throughout the year.  We always read aloud "Owl in the Shower" by Jean Craighead George to bring to life the plight of the loggers vs. owl lovers in the western states.  It's a great books because it shows both points of view...as well as the point of view of the owl.

Today we watched a few You Tube videos to show owls and owl pellets. This is a great one from http://hookedonscience.org - a nifty little website I stumbled across this weekend.

Next, I introduced how to dissect an owl pellet using the website KidWings.  This is a great place to find instructions, worksheets, etc....as well as a virtual dissection option.

I passed out the owl pellets and we went to town...notice, a few of my students chose to do it online rather than using the real owl pellets. I personally think it is a good idea to let kids choose which version they are more comfortable with and not make a big deal out of it!




I have several owl related products available for FREE or cheap on my TPT site.

Barred Owl Adaptations

Owl Pellet Investigations 

What purposes can feather serve? 

Barred Owl Non-fiction (costs $1)



Another really cool thing I learned to do this weekend is create a QR code for my blog.  Scan it, and you can get to Science Gal on your Smart Phones!

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Spider Hunt

Boy did I have fun last week with my students in my after school club of "Green Hornets".  This club is for a growing population of students at my school who are "naturalists" at heart.  Have you ever noticed at recess the group of children that would rather look at the clouds, play in the bushes or trees, or simply pick clover? Those are our naturalists and they love the outdoors!

With all the research in the past few years that says that kids no longer want to play in the woods, I started thinking....why not?  Sure, some kids would rather play video games...but I still have a group of kids who would LOVE for us to let them play in the woods surrounding our school at recess.  And then I wonder....what about those kids who play video games??? Have they ever even been in the woods????

So...I asked one of our moms at our school (who is also a master gardener) to come to our recess time on Friday and offer some activities for the kids to participate in.  She has a growing number of kids who help her search for bugs, make leaf prints, create leaf blankets, look at stumps to learn about the weather, etc...

I also have my after school group.  Last week, we learned about spiders. I got my ideas from the  Handbook of Nature Studies blog.  

I started off by having the group eat their snack and watch some videos of spiders spinning their webs.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube with spiders spinning webs...very cool!

Then we looked at four different types of webs...

sheet webs

Filmy dome webs

Orb Web

Funnel Web

Next we went outside and searched for webs....we found some really cool ones!

The kids had their notebooks and were able to draw what they observed...

Then we came back in and listed what we found...we even snuck in the teachers lounge and found some cobwebs! 

We ended the time with big pieces of black paper and white crayons...the kids had a blast drawing what they saw!

Bear Update and You Tube Clips....

I was having trouble when I posted my bear PDF yesterday...I have gotten many "requests to share" from my Google Doc.  I think I have now switched it to a public account so that now anyone can download it.  So sorry for the mess up!! 

In other news....I found a great YouTube video about Black Bears.  This video clip is from the BBC (they always do a great job with wild life videos)!  This clip is quiet (which is always nice) and shows what the black bears do before hibernation.

Living with Black Bears in Virginia is a great clip put out by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries about what to do when black bears end up in your neighborhood.  For my area, this is a real thing that happens every year in the late summer / early fal.  This clip is great to use as a real world problem - great connections to our real life 

Hope you enjoy and use these in your classroom!

Bears! Hibernation...

  There is something about black bears that makes me happy.  Maybe it is the many hours spent reading Blueberries for Sal as a child with my Grandmother and Mom...Maybe it is the story of the Three Bears (although I think they were Grizzlies) or the Little Bear I Can Read stories...



I created another Science Center for exploring the effects of Cold Temperatures and how body coverings can help keep animals warm.  This one I "tweaked" from National Geographic's Inquiry book (comes with their new science text book). 

This science center is a great one because it allows for students to choose which type of covering they would like to test!

Unfortunately, I have had some trouble with my PDF changeover.   I used a font that changed when converting to PDF and for some reason, I can't fix it!  Please feel free to copy it and change it if you like!

You can get it for FREE here...

Raccoon Center

Raccoons have a great sense of touch.  They have finger like digits that allow them to use their paws like hands.  They also have an operable thumb!  Isn't that cool? 

I have created this center today that you can use to connect the racoon's sense of touch to your sense of touch.

The only materials you need are from nature.  I recommend collecting a few items such as an apple, a leaf, bark, a pine cone, some plastic bugs (if you want), a trash wrapper, and maybe a rock.

Put the items in a paper bag at the center. 

Students will need to feel the items in the bag and try to identify what they are and then infer what the raccoon might use it for.

I hope you will like this!

Raccoons

When I was a little girl, I loved raccoons.  They seemed so cute and cuddly!  As an adult, I know now that they are quite the opposite - they are actually pretty pesky!  They often get into trash in suburban neighborhoods and carry many diseases. 

As a science teacher, I try to compile activities that are science in nature...not artsy!  I hope these suggestions will help you in your classroom.

Websites: 

    National Geographic Kids has a great website with a video clip, map showing locations and printable fact cards for kids who love to to collect cards.

    Animal Tracking this PDF is a great idea for a science center where you can have students guess which footprint matches which animal.


Raccoon Diagram from Enchanted Learning.  This site has a lot of information, coloring diagrams and crafty ideas.


Children's Literature:




Exploring the World Of Raccoons by Tracy C. Read



Raccoon on His Own by Jim Arnosky

Turtles!

I am getting ready to head out of town to celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary!  I will be off the grid for several days.  So while I am out of town, I want to share with you one of my favorite blogs....Handbook for Nature Study.

This blog was created as a resource for homeschoolers...but the activities can easily be implemented in your own classroom.  The link above takes you to her current blog about TURTLES!  (I love turtles.)

Her blog includes links to Youtube videos, how to pond dip, ideas for outdoor hour observations and follow up activities. 

I think you will love it!  See ya next week!

Can you make a feather model?

Making models is a skill that is used by real scientists...and is a skill that teachers should be encouraging our students to use.  The next great engineers are sitting in our classrooms everyday!

With this science center, students can create a feather model which they can easily compare to the real thing.

 You will take a feather and trace around the edges.  Cut it out and tape it to a straw.  Next, try to cut out the filaments along the sides.

When you are finished, you will measure and compare length, mass and some other tests.  The reflection piece also allows you to think about why the real feather is better for the birds!


Download this resource here for FREE.
Enjoy!