Teaching ScienceHelp for trainee Science teachers

iBoard produce an excellent bank of interactive resources for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes in several subjects, including literacy, numeracy and science.

In November last year iBoard was purchased by the TES and made available free of charge to all teachers, which is an excellent development.

If you are involved in teaching KS1, this is well worth a visit.

You can access the resources here: http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/

Here are 10 websites that will prove useful to any teacher of Primary Science looking for things to use on their interactive whiteboard:

The Children’s University of Manchester. Several excellent interactive resources for Primary Science.

NGFL Cymru : Early years, KS1 and KS2 Science resources from the Welsh Grid for Learning.

Simple Science : I love these excellent science song videos. Great for lesson starters or reinforcement of key facts.

IWB.org.uk: KS1 and KS2 interactive science resources (and other subjects)

BBC Bitesize. Always worth a visit, some excellent resources here for Ks2.

BBC Learning Zone - lots of videos to use in Science and other lessons.

Birmingham Grid for Learning – some excellent resources here, and links to other sites.

Crickweb – great flash-based games for KS1 and Ks2 Science.

Fossweb - US site with some interesting interactive science activities.

Primary Resources – Home to some great resources – IWB files, powerpoints, links and more! Also worth checking out is Teaching Ideas, which is on very similar lines.

Don’t forget, if your school subscribes to Espresso, there are some excellent resources for EYFS, KS1 and KS2 in there. (OK, so that makes 11, but Espresso is well worth a look)

Image Credit : Kevin Dooley

To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, commissioned and funded by the Wellcome Trust, has created The Great Plant Hunt. This project will encourage Primary school children to explore the natural world around them and join other schools in the biggest ever school science project.

The Great Plant Hunt invites primary school children to follow in the footsteps of Darwin by going on nature walks in and around their school grounds. They’ll find out more about plants and in the process learn key scientific skills. There is a lot more information, and links to resources in the Teacher Area of the site.

In addition to the activity ideas, there are also interactive resources to use on an IWB such as Plant or Not?, Herby Havoc and Sunflower Survival.

All teaching materials and resources are available to download – so you can make your own Treasure Chest of resources to run The Great Plant Hunt completely free.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

You may have noticed that I am  a huge fan of Twitter. I’ve demonstrated it on my Web 2.0 courses and I get the impression that a lot of people are either unimpressed and can’t see the point, or are overwhelmed at the idea of this huge stream of information. And I’d agree that for the uninitiated, looking at someone elses Twitter stream go flooding past can be a little like trying to decipher The Matrix.

I’ve found Twitter invaluable as a personal learning network. But there is a critical mass to it. If you only follow a few people it can seem quite dull. For it to be useful, you need to start following a lot of people. And hopefully entice those people to follow you.

Here are some tips to help you make the most of Twitter.

1. Follow a few key people. Lurk for a while and see who they talk to. Click on the names of the people they talk to and read their bios. If they seem like interesting people, follow them too. (Edit – yes this does sound a little like stalking! But it’s an effective way of finding new people to follow…)

For IWB’s start with: ChrisBetcher, ActivEducator, MySmartSpaces James Hollis (And me! dannynic)

For inspiring teachers using technology follow: Tom Barrett, Joe Dale, Jose Picardo, Mark Warner, DougBelshaw, Lisa Stevens

Also : here is a list of  100 excellent twittering teachers

And here’s my own list of teachers worth following

2. Use some of the search tools to find people. Try Twitter search to see who’s talking about things you are interested in. Or Monitter. If you see people using hashtags, eg #uksnow or #teachmeet they are making it easier to follow one particular topic. Search for that phrase on twitter search to see other people talking about the same topic. You can also try some of the Twitter directories such as WeFollow – don’t forget to add yourself to the directory too!

3. Make sure you put something in your bio. Mention that you are a teacher or have an interest in web2.0. If you follow people they will look at your profile and make a decision whether to follow you or not. If you don’t have many updates you may look a little like a spammer Letting them know your interests will let them make a judgement about following you back.

4. Use a Twitter client such as Tweetdeck. It runs in the background and automatically updates itself. Makes it easy to see straight away any @messages or direct messages.

5. Twitter on your mobile with dabr.co.uk. It’s a much slicker site to use than the original twitter one when accessing it via a mobile phone.

6. Don’t feel you have to keep up with everything that is being said. Dip in and out. You will never absorb every message that’s being posted by the people you are following. Check it from time to time and scan through the posts for anything interesting.

7. Message people directly by putting an @ sign in front of their username – eg @dannynic will make sure the message is seen by me. Clicking on the @yourusername link in Twitter will show every message sent directly to you, whatever time of day it was sent.

8. Don’t be afraid to lurk for a while – follow people and listen to the conversation. Lurking is not a bad thing. Join in when you feel ready.

9. Have fun! Twitter is all about conversation and networking. Talk to people and share.

10. Learn to love the Fail Whale. It’s just a sign that Twitter is too busy and can’t yet cope with lots of people. Go do something else and try again later.

Here are some other posts that you might find useful

http://mrslwalker.com/?p=79620905

How e-learning can contribute to raising achievement

Understanding how Twitter works

Twitter is Messy

A teacher’s guide to Twitter

21 Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom

Explaining Twitter Presentation

Twitter Newbies FAQ

I wrote this in case it was a Snow Day today and the Science lecture gets cancelled. But seeing as it wasn’t but the Internet connection was very dodgy, it might be worth sharing anyway so you can try out some of the links again.

Here are a few things I’d like you to try.

1. Investigate Build Your Wild Self. http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

Create an animal version of yourself.

Then take a screenshot into Word (print screen button and paste) and write about how this creature might live. What would it eat, how would it hunt? Where would it live etc etc…

2. Investigate Simple Science Songs : http://www.simplescience.net/

How could you use some of these songs to introduce different science lessons? or as a plenary. Could you write your own songs based on these?

3. Take a look at the interactive science websites on my delicious list at: http://delicious.com/dannynic/pgce+science+interactive

Pick two sites that are your favourite.

Then. Go to the Wallwisher page that has been set up at: http://wallwisher.com/wall/scittscienceict

Double click on the page to add a note. Create a note about each of your favourite science/ict sites from the list (or that you have found elsewhere)

Remember to add the address of the site, and a quick note about what it is and why you like it.

4. Take a look at this slideshow on Photopeach. This is an easy way of making a slideshow from images taken with a digital camera, digital microscope or webcam.

The slideshow – What is it??

If you want the answers, they can be found here.

Think about how you could use this to create a slideshow of images on a topic or to showcase pupil work.

And finally

Also : take a look at how other teachers have used technology to provide activities for the children to do from home:

Radstock Primary School

Heathfield Primary School

Had a request in Mondays session for the link to the Earth from Space at Night image. So here it is.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081005.html

(click to make bigger)

Also see : http://geology.com/articles/satellite-photo-earth-at-night.shtml

And here’s London from Space:

More night shots of London can be seen here:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/london_from_above_at_night.html

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/more_of_london_from_above_at_n.html

Thanks to Sciencebase for posting this : Great party tricks for Scientists.

Would also make good lesson starters (esp the vineger/bicarb one)

Be careful with those matches

Bill Nye demonstrates a scale model of the solar system by riding his bike across a barren plain.

Richard Dawkins once wrote this about our solar system:

Find a large open space, and take a soccer ball to represent the sun. Put the ball down and walk ten paces in a straight line, stick a pin in the ground. The head of the pin stands for the planet Mercury. Take another nine paces beyond Mercury and put down a peppercorn to represent Venus.

Seven paces on, drop another peppercorn for Earth. One inch from Earth, another pin head represents the moon, the furthest place, lets remember, that we have so far reached.

Fourteen more paces to little Mars and ninety five paces to giant Jupiter, a ping pong ball. One hundred and twelve paces further, Saturn is a marble.

No time to deal with the outer planets, except to say the distances are much larger. But how far would you have to walk to reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri? Pick up another football to represent it and set off on a walk for four thousand two hundred miles.

As for the nearest other galaxy, Andromeda, don’t even think about it.

A few photos from the day.