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!

Comment:

American Idol Math

 Yes, I did just say math....I usually only blog about science, but today is an exception.  I've got to share with you my favorite way to teach probability, fractions and decimal connections.  My good friend, Sherrie Roland, came up with this idea many years ago and shared it with me. I have done it for the past three years and each year I believe it is one of the best ways my kids make sense of probability and fractions....through the events that happen on American Idol!

I must admit, this year has had me on my toes!  Usually we have some time to explore with 18 contestants and watch them dwindle down to the top 12.  But this year we went from the top 20 to the top 10 in one week!

Here's how we start....I created a bulletin board that shows the top 20 contestants with their official photo shoot pictures. 


 After they were eliminated, and we went from 20 to 10 we noticed that we had lost 10/20 contestants which is the same as 1/2 which is the same as 50%.  We also noticed that of the 10 contestants who were voted off, 5/10 were girls and 5/10 were boys.  So 10/20 = 5/10 = 1/2 = 50%.

Some of the ways that we keep track of the data each week is by comparing the fractions of girls vs. boys, subtracting fractions with like denominators and searching for equivalent fractions. 

We also practice probability by plotting the likelihood of a boy or girl winning each week on the likelihood line.  The B and G are on index cards that we can manipulate and move along the line - describing the data using percentages, fractions and vocabulary.



Next up, I create a journal for them. It's a simple white covered journal with about 7 pieces of notebook paper in it.  They get to decorate the cover with the title American Idol Math.

Inside I give them a copy of the top ten contestants with their names on it. For the next 10 weeks, we will count down the contestants that get voted off.  As we do we write in our journals to keep track of what is going on.  Last year I predicted Phillip Phillips early on and I have it in print to prove it!


Here is the general format:

Last night ______ got voted off.

9/10 - 1/10 = 8/10

5/10 Girls and 3/10 Boys.  There is a greater likelihood of a girl winning this year than a boy. 

(Draw a likelihood line on the notebook - plot the fractions on the line)

Sometimes we write our favorite part from the night before depending on the night or the time.

Hope you can use this!

 

What about claims and evidence?

     I just sat through an excellent overview of Junior Great Books - a reading curriculum that uses the shared inquiry approach.   I absolutely loved it because it follows my philosophy towards teaching.  In other words, it teaches kids how to think!  Inquiry is all about asking questions and finding answers/solutions in many different ways.  Finally - a reading resource that works like my math/science resources.  One of the components is to find your evidence from the story to back up your thinking.  Wow - that's simply claims and evidence. 

      In the FOSS Notebook folio (page 27) the authors write a little about this idea: "A claim is an assertion about how the natural world works.  A student might claim that metals stick to magnets.  For the claim to be accurate, it must be supported by evidence - statements that are directly correlated with data.Evidence can refer to specific observations, relationships that are displayed in graphs, table of data, dates and measurements."

Okay..so that seems tricky...how can I make it work?  After you have done an experiment or investigation and you have recorded data in your notebook, you can use this example to help you make sense of your data. Pretend you have been exploring magnets and materials to see what objects will attract to the magnet.

I love sentence frames to begin teaching the process of writing scientific explanations.  I would begin by writing:

  I claim that _____________________  or I know that_______________. 
                        I claim that metal objects stick to magnets.
 Next I would provide this sentence frame for the evidence part:
I claim this because___________or I know this because______________.
       I know this because the only materials that were attracted by the magnet were things made out of metal - mostly iron.

A fairly simple method that sums up the learning process in a quick, accurate and efficient manner. You can do it as a T chart if you have more than one claim/evidence to record as well.

Hope that helps you out today!  Gotta Run!