Direct our mission!
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Here's how this week's lessons can help you address DCIs. If you want to expose students to specific Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), pick and choose areas of greatest student need and frame classroom conversations accordingly. Click on any of the colored NGSS codes below to go to the NGSS website for a deeper look at each standard. This week's lessons can help you address the following topics. Day 9: Build a Better Hide This lesson is another big K-2 engineering challenge! If you need to investigate how animals adapt their environments or the effects of shade with your kindergarten students, this lesson will help. As with most engineering challenges, this is also a great opportunities to investigate properties of matter with second grade scientists.
Day 10: Seed Dispersal This game based lesson is a great way to explore connections in ecosystems and set the stage for some deeper work in these areas in upcoming missions. It can also help you explore the following life science topics with your second graders! In order to really get at 2-LS2-1, however, you'll need to work with the service learning part of the lesson. Why not join in the #PlantED global project and grow a tree? So Much Footage!Our mission to Thailand is incredible adventure made even better because our friends Jan, Tu, and Laimek could join us. Not only can they act as translators and guides but the are ALSO super generous and are sharing all of their photos and videos with us! This presents a new problem...what do we leave behind? We work hard to ensure that our field mission videos are developmentally appropriate, tell an interesting and cohesive story, and present evidence students need to evaluate the hypothesis. That means not every amazing moment makes it into the videos. We're sharing some of those photos and videos on our social media feeds so be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! We are also posting some here. We had some of our Super Teachers ask for bonus photos to use to for practicing "productive talk" with their students! Take a look at one of the photos with your students then try one or more of the productive talk moves as your students describe or explain what they see. I love this list:
Science can be messy...We don't just mean that your tables will get wet and your students will be dirty. Sometimes the messy is mental! For some missions, the evidence we collect and analyze produces a clear cut answer to the hypothesis. Other times, and more often than not, the answers are not so simple. I'm excited that Mission: Tigers! is one of those times. We thought about waiting until later in the school year for this mission as it requires grappling with the gray areas which demands some high level thinking. Then again, what better time to learn to have deep and meaningful discussions than NOW? Meaty conversations can help build a positive classroom culture as students become skilled at productive talk strategies. Learning to have quality conversations now will improve the learning environment of classrooms all year long!
The evidence we collect are clues to what is actually happening in HKK regarding our hypothesis. While we may think the evidence supports the hypothesis, we can not say definitively that it is true no matter how much evidence we find during our study. It may seem counterintuitive but that notion that one study cannot render something true is a very important aspect of science.
An Emergent Truth Science is the most powerful process we have for finding what is true. The scientific method or process is the "nuts and bolts" of science but there is another level that we don't really address with your students that is incredibly important. It is the process of reaching what is known as an emergent truth. The emergent truth cannot be reached through one or even a few studies. To reach an emergent truth, the hypothesis must be tested many times by many different scientists that all reach the same conclusion. What we do with each mission is basically the equivalent of conducting a single study to test a hypothesis. But as in all of science, a single study is just that, a single study and not definitive proof of what is true. No matter how convincing the study's finding may be, until it is replicated by other scientists, it is merely a suggestion of what may or may not be true. So, scientists conduct studies about a natural phenomenon, present their findings (data or evidence) and conclusions (analysis) to the scientific community and the general public. There is debate about the merits and shortcomings of each study, even more studies are conducted until, eventually, we see certain results over and over again. These reoccurring results become the emergent truth. Help build that truth! For our students, we are focused on the "nuts and bolts" part of the process of science. As we get to the end of our study, they must decide what the evidence we've collected means for our hypothesis. There will be a lot of room for discussion and voicing their doubts about what the evidence means is a vital part of the process! Is there another possible interpretation of the evidence? Could the tiger tracks be from a tiger passing through HKK just as easily as it could be from one living there? Which one seems more likely? Once your class discusses the evidence and reaches its conclusion, just like with real studies, they need to publish it so it can become a part of the larger process of reaching an emergent truth. Here's how this week's lessons can help you address DCIs. If you want to expose students to specific Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), pick and choose areas of greatest student need and frame classroom conversations accordingly. Click on any of the colored NGSS codes below to go to the NGSS website for a deeper look at each standard. This week's lessons can help you address the following topics. Day 7: Build a Better Bath This STEM challenge is super flexible, allowing you to dig as deep as you'd like into the testing and redesign cycle and time and interests permit!
Check out the new elephant related files this week!We're sharing a couple of fascinating files this week. I think both would make ideal mystery prints! What's a mystery print? Only one of the simplest ways ever to use 3D printing as a hook for engagement and high level thinking and conversation! Simply start a file printing. (You may need to cover the screen on your printer if you have clever readers.) Throughout the day check on the progress and have students predict what you are printing and defend their ideas with evidence! I'm not sure they'll get either of these figured out, but it VERY likely that you'll have some great conversations!
Share your discoveries...report that info!We are thrilled that some classes have started sharing some of their experiences this mission on the Publish It! page. Publishing is the engine that moves science forward. When a scientist's work is published it is subject to peer-review and validation. Knowledge can not move forward in a vacuum! While our publications may not push the boundaries of scientific discoveries, they do help us all learn more! We respond to every post you share on our Publish It! page. We also send a certificate to your class to commemorate their first, fifth, tenth, and each tenth post thereafter. It is a small gesture, but we hope it helps underscore the importance of this part of the process! Increasingly, classrooms are commenting on one anther's work. This is a great opportunity to teach digital citizenship and model polite and supportive discourse online. Literacy tips for this week's comic!Things get rather topsy turvy for Curiosity Cat and Data Dog this week! Do your students have a favorite panel this week? I certainly do! In fact, my favorite illustration for the whole adventure is in this week's edition! Leave us a comment with your favorite! My favorite is below! Pre K: Focus on language of instruction!
Kindergarten: Focus on sound substitutions.
Direct our mission!
Update on the Wishing Well campaign and Mission: Water!Curtis and I like to refer to the process of doing science, what scientists call the Scientific Method, the most powerful tool ever invented! What happens when you combine knowledge and practices gained from science with compassion? Wonderfulness!!!
There is absolutely no pressure to engage in fundraising activities, but many schools have elected to help and found it very rewarding. If you'd like to get involved now you can still make donations offline. Just email us at [email protected] to start the ball rolling. You can also visit our crowd funding page for more info! Here's a list of some of the things that have happened since we wrapped up our initial funding push:
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Meet Beth and Curtis!Presidential Award-Winning teacher and hula hoop fanatic, Beth loves bringing real world science to kids! Beth is fascinated by engineering challenges, technology, and outdoor learning spaces. After 25 years teaching kindergarten, she’s excited to share her passion and experience on-line with classrooms from around the world! Archives
May 2021
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