Sponsored by the 
Maine State Teachers of the Year Association
November 9. 2019
1-3 pm.  The  Quarry Tap Room
(Otherwise known as Hallowell’s Deepest Watering Hole) 

Open to all educators-Bring a Colleague at no charge!!!!
This year's featured guest is Dan Ryder.  Dan is the Director of the Success and Innovation Center at Mount Blue High School in Farmington, Maine.  He is the author of Intention: Critical Creativity in the Classroom, and the recipient of the 2019 MEA Teacher Prize.  Come spend the afternoon catching up  and networking, enjoying refreshments, and learning from Dan.  

As we were researching the leaf insect we saw on Day 11, we came across an amazing quote from Antonio Pigafetta in his article "The First Voyage Round the World, by Magellan"  about Magellan's trip from 1519- 1522 across the globe and his an encounter with a leaf insect on an island.   

It seems absurd to us today, but that's because we know more about the "animated leaf" now.  I can imagine scientists reading Antonio's account of a "walking leaf" and deciding to verify the claim for themselves!  Eventually, more observations of the  peculiar leaves would have led to the discovery that they weren't leaves at all.  They were insects mimicking a leaves!
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Watching children grow and develop their understanding of the world is a lot like witnessing the scientific process in miniature again and again.   Each failed life test or misconception can broaden a child's understanding of the world.  Over time, a child's understanding of events and phenomena gains accuracy because they are blending their own prior knowledge with new information.

Publishing is powerful because it allows us to share hard-found information so that others don't have to start from scratch, they can continue to build on what is already known.  From the technology we use to the worlds we can explore, we owe our advances not only to our own efforts, but to all those who came before us.  Clearly, all those who came before did not have it all figured out, but the fact that they shared what they did know helped advance the knowledge base.  We encourage you to support your children in sharing their knowledge too.  It may not be perfect, but that's OK!  They're helping build greater understanding for themselves AND others!

Do you think the tigers we've seen are all different tigers or are some of them the same tigers and we are seeing them again?  Here are some pictures of those tigers so that you can compare the stripe patterns and tell us what you think!  You can click through the slide show or download the photos using the buttons below.

Technology makes it easier than ever to help students understand and connect to the world around them.  One reason we include school visits and cultural information in our research adventures is to help students gain empathy and practice seeing someone else's point of view.   Spending time with Jan, Tu, and Laimek certainly helped me gain a greater understanding of Thai culture and enriched my life! 

If your students are interested in communicating directly with Liamek, his parents would be happy to help!  Your students got to know him a bit in the Thailand field mission videos but getting to really know him is a true joy!  He loves books, drawing, legos, and exploring with his parents.  If you wish to connect with him, just shoot us an email at Curious@Go2Science.com and we'll get you the family's email address.  

It happens to all of us!  Despite our best efforts mistakes happen.  Sometimes it's a typo.  Other times it is a tech glitch or even wrong information.  The good news is that those "oh no" moments can provide awesome learning opportunities.  My classroom library, for example, had some vintage literature in it.  I loved when kids would come to me and tell me that the T-rex in a beloved dinosaur book had the wrong posture or that the book about the "First Thanksgiving" had it all wrong!  

Once again hats off to Ms. Tedesco's Scientists and Mrs. A's Superheroes for their keen observation and critical thinking skills.  Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and discoveries.  The world needs your questioning and reasoning skills.  YOU ROCK!

​I feel incredibly fortunate that I came to teaching when I did and that I had some incredible mentors who empowered me to trust my judgement and focus on meaningful priorities.  We teach CHILDREN we cover curriculum.  Children, when given access to content and materials that ignite their passion and fuel their wonder have the tendency to grow and develop just as they should.  When pushed to do too much too soon, however, we can unwittingly create behavior and learning issues.  Likewise, when underestimated and under-stimulated, kiddos can grow restless or loose interest in learning. 

I was also fortunate to have the trust of my community.  They supported my efforts to teach the children rather than simply cover the curriculum and a funny thing happened.  My students tended to actually end up performing pretty well.  Though they usually entered school with (collectively) the "lowest scores" in my district they usually left with the highest.

Not every teacher has the luxury of that trust from their community or administration, but WE trust you!  We trust that you want to do the best you can do for your students.  We trust that if you really observe them, you'll see what they need.  We trust that you'll know that when your kindergarten kiddos are too squirmy to sit through a whole livestream in the fall that it's ok to shut it off.  Or that if your second graders need more you'll dig deeper. 

​​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 11: Resident Population  This is another game based lesson that can help students think about resident populations before their final analysis of the data for this mission.  Games help build many 21st Century Skills.  This lesson also provides the opportunity to address the following DCIs.  Knowing your grade level standards can help you frame discussion and ask essential questions during game play.
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• K-LS1-1. Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.  Examples of patterns could include that animals need to take in food but plants do not; the different kinds of food needed by different types of animals; the requirement of plants to have light; and, that all living things need water.
• K-ESS3-1. Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live. Examples of relationships could include that deer eat buds and leaves, therefore, they usually live in forested areas; and, grasses need sunlight so they often grow in meadows. Plants, animals, and their surroundings make up a system.  
• 1-LS1-2. Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive. Examples of patterns of behaviors could include the signals that offspring make (such as crying, cheeping, and other vocalizations) and the responses of the parents (such as feeding, comforting, and protecting the offspring).
• 1-LS3-1. Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents. Examples of patterns could include features plants or animals share. Examples of observations could include leaves from the same kind of plant are the same shape but can differ in size; and, a particular breed of dog looks like its parents but is not exactly the same.
• 2-LS4-1. Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats. Emphasis is on the diversity of living things in each of a variety of different habitats.

Day 12: Publishing Conclusions  The publishing lesson affords you the opportunity to revisit many standards, however, the kindergarten and second grade standards detailed below are ones of particular importance for all!  

• K-ESS3-3. Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment. Examples of human impact on the land could include cutting trees to produce paper and using resources to produce bottles. Examples of solutions could include reusing paper and recycling cans and bottles.
• 2-LS4-1. Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats. Emphasis is on the diversity of living things in each of a variety of different habitats.

Memory is like a muscle.  We can make it stronger with regular exercise!  Our comic is one tool you can use to support memory development with yours students.  Waiting for each week's edition means students must recall what happened last week to follow the story.  In the days of on demand content, waiting like this is rare!  Read on for a few ways you can use the comic to exercise that memory muscle with your students! 

PreK: Focus on visual memory.

• What's missing?  Print the nine large panels for large group play or cut the nine small panels apart for tabletop play.  Lay all panels face up where students can see them and give them 30 seconds to look at them very carefully.  Set a timer for added fun!  Then have students hide their eyes and remove one of the panels.  Challenge them to describe which panel is missing.  Who was in that panel?  What were they doing?
• Memory Matching  Print two copies of the nine panel comic and cut the panels apart to create a set of 18 cards.  (Consider printing on card-stock or mounting on construction paper so students can't see through the paper.)  Shuffle the cards and arrange them in three rows face down on a table.  Take turns drawing two cards at a time.  If they match, remove the cards from play!  This version of the classic memory game challenges visual discrimination and memory simultaneously as the illustrations are complex.  Cross training for the brain!

Grades 1 and 2:  Focus on remembering stories and information.

• What happened?  Before students see this week's comic take some time to recall what has happened so far.  Try using a "think, pair, share" or "turn and talk" strategy to support students in remembering what has happened in the story so far.  If time allows, try having students sketch or storyboard the previous week's comics to tap into their visual memory skills.   Now, based on what's happened so far, encourage students to predict likely outcomes.  Will Data Dog and Curiosity Cat make it home before Beth and Curtis?  How will they time travel?  How will they get out of the ball?
• Dial it Back!  Any of the PreK and K suggestions would also work great for your older students.  It's great to have older students approach the same task as younger ones.  If you have the opportunity to work with or observe across grade levels, it can be very exciting to see how thinking changes at different developmental levels.  Looking to younger students can remind both teachers and students just how far they've come in just a few short years!

Things are getting pretty exciting for Curiosity Cat and Data Dog!  Are your students on the edge of their seats?  Well many of these tips get them up out of their seats and moving!  

​Kindergarten: Focus on short vowels!

• Find those sounds!  Challenge students to find all of the sound effects.  If they are able, have them copy each sound effect onto a separate card.  If fine motor skills or time dictate, you can write each one as students identify them.  Use this set of flash cards to practice reading the words in isolation.  Is it harder or easier than reading the words in the comic?  Reflect on why.
• Sound Author!  One panel does not have ANY sound effects.  (Don't get fooled, another panel has a very tiny nom, nom hiding!)  Challenge students to invent and phonetically spell their own sound effects for this panel.  Then share those sound effects with us!
• Vowel Sort:  Use the cards you created to do a sound sort.  Go through the cards with small groups of students and challenge them to sort the sound effects into two piles.  One pile is for words with short vowel sounds, the other is for everything else!  You could also ask them to find just the short /u/ or short/a/ words and sort that way.  Have fun!