Log in
|
Join
|
Help
Science teacher
A high school science teacher explores ways to expand the universe inside classroom walls.
July 2011 - Posts
The Kids Are All Right!
31 July 11 06:50 PM
I went to the Save Our Schools March --500 miles, a few Guinnesses, and many smiles later, I have the obligatory report. I'm not going to blow sunshine up your colon, though there was plenty of sun to spare. I am going to focus on the huge positives,
Read More...
SOS March: Our stories matter
29 July 11 10:32 AM
If I could start again a million miles away I would keep myself I would find a way.... Trent Reznor My son's toes were cut up pretty good, my daughter's shiner began its inevitable transition from a dull red to the eggplant hue it promises to be. Leslie
Read More...
Food for thought
27 July 11 10:00 PM
If you don't eat enough, you lose weight. Assuming you're hanging around the surface of the Earth, losing weight means you're losing mass. Where does it go? Many of my students (and many adults) think that the food (mass) gets converted to energy, and
Read More...
A non-NCLB test for your students
25 July 11 06:14 PM
This graphic from Adbusters was shared by someone on the AP Biology listserve. Issue #84: Nihilism and Revolution There's not much to say. Not much at all. I have never regretted a single moment spent outside, even those times an instant before impact
Read More...
Unanticipated, but not unnatural
25 July 11 11:16 AM
CO2 is denser than air. This is easily demonstrated in class. Combine vinegar and baking soda together in a beaker to generate the gas. The students will groan. Yeah, we know this already, it bubbles.... Ask them what bubbles, and they will tell you what
Read More...
Expecto Patronum
23 July 11 09:52 AM
Horseshoe crabs and I have a long history. Theirs longer than ours. These were tossed up on a huge hill of dredge waste, peering through the gray mud. I have witnessed much, most unspoken, in my years, as I am sure you have, too. I do not understand,
Read More...
Why I'm marching next week. Hope you join us!
22 July 11 01:13 PM
If you want to see, you need to sit still. Still enough, for long enough, to be part of what is. Be still and know. You will know what it means when you get there--but first you have to sit. Still. This is my Auntie Beth's pond, not mine. *** I've gotten
Read More...
Just another snake story
21 July 11 11:39 AM
I spend a lot of time staring at the several hundred gallon puddle we have in our back yard. My daughter dug a hole in the ground years ago, I tossed in a liner, and now it's full of rainwater and life. This is my Auntie Beth's pond, not mine. If you
Read More...
"A Framework for K-12 Science Education" released today
19 July 11 01:13 PM
A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas was just released. One of my few frustrations with teaching science at the high school level are the misconceptions kids carry up from lower grades, or from life
Read More...
Better safe than sorry?
19 July 11 11:36 AM
One of my more vivid memories of childhood was woozily walking around the monkey bars one morning, my head stuck with my nose pointing to the sky, perplexed by my inability to yell, or make any noise at all. Just seconds before I had been happily tooting
Read More...
The Jose Vilson
18 July 11 08:03 PM
If you have not read his words yet, find him . He happens to be a math teacher, not a science teacher, but he's a teacher . There are a lot of few great voices out there. His resonates with me. Tell me who resonates with you.
Read More...
A phenology post
17 July 11 05:46 PM
This one's for me. It's my blog. After hundreds, maybe thousands of tiger lilies, the last two or three will bloom tomorrow. First pelicans of the year, about 4 headed north along the bay's edge, another flock of 11 headed to the point. Beans are in full
Read More...
Elementary science: playing with fire
17 July 11 01:33 PM
Fire is obvious, so it seems. Pretty much every child recognizes the flame of butane lighter is the same as the flames on the stove or on a lit candle. A child sees that a fire makes solids things smaller. The grown-ups tell children that fire consumes,
Read More...
Stuff matters: more thoughts on elementary curriculum
17 July 11 09:35 AM
Many children (and quite a few adults) don’t think of air as matter. It’s invisible, seemingly immune to gravity, has no taste, makes no sound. When you light a match, it burns up and disappears into “thin air.” This is a problem. *** The stuff of matter,
Read More...
Why are blueberries blue?
13 July 11 02:24 PM
The dead brittle branches of February now hold hundreds of berries--most still a ghostly green blue. A few have ripened to the dark, deep blue depths of light that remind me of the very young, and the very old, of the transitional cyanosis of a newborn
Read More...
Slow seeing
10 July 11 12:07 PM
If you want to kill a child's interest in astronomy,buy her the biggest piece of glass you can afford the first hour she expresses any interest in the stars. Make sure it's got a computer-guided star finder, and that it "talks" to her as she explores
Read More...
A clammer meets the internets
09 July 11 09:19 AM
After yesterday's dust off , where I tangentially blame modern technology for the impending collapse of, well, everything, I thought I might need to re-establish some semblance of credentials for the edutech crowd, and perhaps even more important, potential
Read More...
Letting go
06 July 11 08:15 PM
I'm letting go this year. I'm going to trust the collection of young humans sitting in my class, brains honed by countless generations before them, each and every child with a lineage going back as far as the first protobionts that globbed together in
Read More...
Another horseshoe crab story
06 July 11 04:29 PM
I fished in thigh deep water today, surrounded by gazillions of horseshoe crab eggs, most of which will be eaten in the next day or two. A small fish, obviously versed in the Curly and the Oyster Stew episode, kept grabbing my lure just as I was pulling
Read More...
Thermometers, yet again
05 July 11 07:26 PM
If you stick your hand into a half full jar of sourdough pretzels in a Jersey July, you will feel your hand get noticeably cooler. Really. Try it. If you measure the temperature inside the jar, it will be exactly the same as the temperature outside the
Read More...
Independence Day
04 July 11 08:12 PM
"...[A]t the length truth will out." I love the Fourth of July. Today we feasted on the first local tomatoes, a completely different beast than the imposters sitting on your grocery shelves. I ate a peach that grew less than two miles from here, its impossibly
Read More...
Thermodynamics in elementary school
02 July 11 01:36 PM
The cicadas are humming again. I think I hear what they're saying: "As much sun as there is today, there's a little less than yesterday." They crawl form underground chambers to share their oracles, our oracles. We know how the story ends. The easy living
Read More...
Go
This Blog
Home
About
Links
Email
Recent Posts
Yearbook signing time
A note on "partial" deafness
Which apple will your child hold?
Designed intelligence?
Wordless in May
Popular Topics
Electrostatic magnetic ...
Big Ideas: "One Liv...
Classroom toys: rattleb...
Why I Teach: modeling a...
Musing on mufflers: introduc...
Tags
AP Biology
Charles Darwin
clamming
clams
culture
death
descent with modification
education
education reform
evolution
food
grace
Intelligent Design
joy
Kim Foglia
life
Luddite
natural world
science
STEM
teaching
teaching science
technology
toys
truth
Navigation
Home
Teacher Blogs
Teacher Directory
Message Board
Feedback
Archives
June 2013 (4)
May 2013 (6)
April 2013 (11)
March 2013 (12)
February 2013 (11)
January 2013 (12)
December 2012 (24)
November 2012 (6)
October 2012 (11)
September 2012 (9)
August 2012 (9)
July 2012 (18)
June 2012 (3)
Syndication
RSS 2.0
Atom 1.0