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Distance Learning Help!
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How do I begin?!?I've spent my summer talking with teachers from coast to coast and the one thing pretty much EVERYONE has is common is that this first day of school will be like no other. I get a lot of questions about how to get started with Go2Science and what the schedule "should" look like. The good news is we designed Go2Science to be adaptable so you can vary its content and pacing to fit YOUR needs! In fact, with so much going on this fall, an asynchronous first mission might be a great way to take off a bit of pressure.
Some schools are planning to use Go2Science content on their remote learning days and may stretch out the mission to last 12 weeks, showing one field video a week and doing that video's related lessons. We love their ingenuity! What's in a mission?
What's a "Live Mission?"The mission you see when you first log in is always the "featured" or "live mission." Right now, that's Mission: Dinosaur! It is the only mission that will have active livestream and vote features. We'll share live mission materials with you over a six week span but they will remain available all school year. You may also choose to do older missions (available by clicking the down arrow next to the missions tab at the top of the page--see below). There will always be six visible missions with the live mission in the upper left. As we share new live missions, the mission in the lower left will cease to be available so plan accordingly. Note: If multiple grade levels are using Go2Science, consider all using the live mission (even asynchronously) as it helps build a positive school culture, prevents students from experiencing repeated missions (spoiling the illusion of being live), AND gives teachers the opportunity to share planning and prep through vertical teaming.
Instructional strategies and tips for using comics in class!Our comics are a super fun way to hook readers! While the adventures involving our dog and cat are, of course, science fiction they are VERY heavy on science fact. Best of all, they model and support the spirit of inquiry! If you are new to our comic, click here to read the back story. There is even a pdf version you can share with families! Each mission has an adventure that unfolds over six episodes so you can build anticipation while exercising memory skills.
PreK: Encourage your pre-readers to make up their own words as they read the pictures to tell a story. If they have trouble getting started some simple questions can prime the pump. For example, look at panel 1 and ask, "What is Curiosity Cat doing?" "How do you think she feels?' If students answer with single word replies, model complete sentences. "Curiosity Cat is wearing her glasses. She's reading a big book about dinosaurs. She is very excited!" For this age group, I recommend printing hard copies of the little book format to support book handling skills.  Kindergarten: Our sounds effects are geared towards supporting kindergarten reading skills. As students learn to connect sounds and symbols, empower them to use that beginning knowledge to read! Try these activities:
First Grade: Our speech bubbles provide a bit more challenge for early readers. While most of the dialog is comprised of common sight words or easy to decode text, there are some trickier words in there. Words like "dinosaur" and "curiosity" may not be typical grade level decodable words, but students will soon learn them as they'll be repeated throughout the adventure. Try this: project the comic on your white board. Have students indicate the words within the speech bubbles that are easy to read and cross them off. Next circle the remaining words. What strategies can they use to figure them out? Write each of these words on an index card and place a small picture cue next to it. Finally, erase all your marks and read through the panels together. Reference the tricky word cards you created as necessary. Second Grade: For many second graders, much of the comic will be easy to read but the texts boxes are most likely to be at their instructional level. Form mixed ability teams to read the various parts. One group can read Curiosity Cat's speech bubbles. Another will read Data Dog's thoughts and words. A third group will act as narrator reading the text boxes. Everyone can join in on the sound effects! These mixed ability choral reading groups can even take on a bit of a reader's theater feel with each group working on expressive reading.
As seen on Maine Public Television!We did a special edit of our livestream archives from our mission to Kenya in search of groundwater. Did you see some of the episodes on Maine Public? Are you curious to see how the mission turned out? Never fear! We're sharing the series here. It will be visible through the summer for your viewing pleasure. If you want to check out the related lessons, re-watch the field videos, or read the super cool comic simply sign up for a free trial by clicking HERE. Teachers found Go2Science resources SUPER helpful for distance learning, so if you are an educator or parent and want to learn more about what we offer, contact us at go2science@curious.com and request a site tour. We'd be happy to get you started and help you help your students have incredible learning adventures no matter where they are learning! Click each photo to view the related video on Safe Youtube.
Join us for some awesome stories!We are a bit sad that our work in Borneo is done but you can continue the adventure with a pair of books about Borneo! We also heard from many of you that Go2Science has been the hook to lure your students into your remote classrooms during COVID 19 school closures. Curtis and I found some books in Borneo we thought your students would enjoy . So we've created some virtual read-aloud sessions for you to share with students and keep them engaged for a few more weeks of distance learning. Enjoy!
We are THRILLED that the folks at The Innovation Press granted permission for us to share one of their beautiful books with you as a virtual read aloud! FUNGUS IS AMONG US! is a great tie in to our recent Biodiversity mission in Borneo. I love that it spotlights a real mycologist, Dr. Sara Branco! (Yes, I followed her on twitter!)
If you joined us for the Kenyan Groundwater mission, this story is for you! The main character is from Sudan, but her plight is very similar to the water challenges they had at HIP Academy.
Maine Public Broadcasting presents The Learning SpaceProgramming is now available on MPBN at 12:30 eastern time Mondays through Fridays. You can also watch the archives here: www.mainepublic.org/post/welcome-learning-space May 15 Update: Maine Public will begin airing archives of the Kenya mission on Monday May 18! They'll move on to our special Borneo episode once they've aired all of the Kenya episodes. Here is the schedule so far:
We've heard from lots of you that older siblings are creeping into Go2Science sessions! That's why, when the Maine Teacher of the Year Association asked for members to volunteer, I decided to offer up some Go2Science content. I don't have a schedule of when the program will air, but I wanted to give you a heads up that we've created a special Borneo edition that should air soon. Don't worry, it only includes content we've already shared with you so it should not spoil the fun for your students. Later the project will also share lightly edited versions of our livestream archives from the Groundwater Mission in Kenya. I think it will be a fun way for kids to share this experience with their families!  Links to share with families!The internet is a wonderful way to explore the world, but kids need to be safe! That's why we're sharing links for our videos via Safe Youtube to support your distance learning this mission! You can send parents here to collect the links or copy and paste them and share via the platform of your choice. The videos are visible on this page as well, thanks to Weebly's YouTube embedding tool. To ensure kids' safety, we advise teacher and parents not to share this page directly with your young students if they are unsupervised. Children should also be supervised if watching videos or livestreams directly on the site.
Biodiversity Data: Organize and Analyze!We are asking students to help us analyze some data on this mission! We will be sharing daily photos of the forest floor, understory, and canopy so students can determine if plant diversity is low, medium, or high, at each of those levels. Log in and check out the Day 3 lessons on the PreMission page for support with analyzing the data. Check back on this page for additional photos to analyze as the mission progresses! We will also use this page to share animal photos students can use to track animal biodiversity. With distance learning in place, it might be simplest to share pdfs with students, while you maintain a hard copy. Ask students to weigh in about how to short and classify the animals then attach photos to your chart as they direct. You can share photos of the progress with them or take a look during a classroom video call. Please let us know about the creative ways you are interacting with students around this data. The good news about this mission is that the data should be pretty clear cut, so even if you decide to skim over this analysis your students should be able to draw some conclusions about the hypothesis anyway. Your analysis could be as simple as tally marks of how many different animals you see in the photos at the end of each video. Remember to be kind to yourselves and cut back when you need to.  Download the photographic evidence below!
Extra support is just a click away! Hello everyone! I've been busy chatting with teachers and educational leaders near and far and what strikes me most is how much everyone wants to help. Teachers are going above and beyond to attend to their students physical and mental well being. AND teachers are being incredible LEARNERS as they rapidly grow their skill sets to cope with our unfamiliar new reality. I really want to help too, so I've held a few Zoom calls to talk about the Biodiversity mission and spotlight all the ways the lessons we will soon be sending your way can be implemented at home. I shared tips from some of our Super Teachers and let you know about the additional supports we'll be providing during this mission to hopefully make your distance learning efforts a bit easier. Our users said they'd like to continue regular meetings during the mission. I'll post dates and links here as I schedule them. I keep looking to the good things that are coming out of these shut downs. Getting to actually SEE YOU on these calls is at the top of the list. :-) These will basically be virtual office hours. I'll just be on hand LIVE if you want to connect. ****IF YOU NEED CALLS ON A DIFFERENT PLATFORM OR OTHER TIMES LET US KNOW! WE'LL ACCOMMODATE!**** Open Zoom sessions for Go2Science Support
Is the hypothesis true?
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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
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