This week I decided to try and find some websites that have lesson plans for teachers to use that can engage students in science. Some are better than others and some may need to be modified or tweaked to get students to participate in Science Inquiry. Overall, I think that this will help many beginning teachers when they think about how they are going to meet the needs of their district at the beginning of the year and keep students engaged. Unfortunately, not a lot of sites had a lot to do with Science Inquiry process as much as keeping them engaged. I wonder if there are websites that cater to both needs for our students.
This website is a basic site that has a few activities for science per age level. There wasn't much for the older age levels and didn't have much for the idea of Science Inquiry, but with a few adaptations there could be lessons to be given.
This website has a lot more variety in all age ranges for students in Science. While a lot of these activities are engaging and would keep students interested in Science, not all lessons had a higher level thinking for students or went through the Science Inquiry stages.
The following website has links to other sites that help teachers find engaging lesson plans. This site is appropriate for more middle school or high school grades. Some sites do seem to broach into the idea of Science Inquiry, but most don't.
I did find a website that had a list of science inquiry activities in the classroom for a variety of age levels. Some of the activities look a little engaging as well. Another website had other sites it linked to, but didn't seem as engaging as the one previously listed.
Where are these sites for teachers to achieve both concepts? We can't begin to teach something we don't see examples of. Perhaps I worded my search incorrectly in the google search engine but the two terms seem to nearly impossible to combine when attempted.
Try this site: http://ists.pls.uni.edu/istj/issues/index.html
ReplyDeleteThis page (http://scido.wikispaces.com/Share+Folders) is a "resource dump" with lots of teacher created activities for middle and high school science.
ReplyDeleteI like this site (http://undsci.berkeley.edu/) for nature of science resources and activities.
Thanks for these helpful websites. I think its important to have an abundance of resources to turn to when developing lesson plans. I like how your sites have different approaches to how to teach a science lesson. Changing up the way you present your lesson plan is a great way to get students engaged and motivated to learn the new material you are presenting to them.
ReplyDeleteI would agree that websites for valid and valuable science inquiry activities are few and far between. I would guess that this is due to the lack of knowledge of current teachers. When I think back to my science days in middle school, I can remember doing some experiments that were REALLY cool. However, I don't remember them having anything to do with inquiry... we just did this awesome experiment and then moved on. Unfortunately, I think a lot of teachers aren't very knowledgable in science. By no means am I bashing their teaching styles, I just don't think they have had the proper training. A lot of teachers find these "great experiments" online and implement them in their classroom without thinking about the effectiveness and content that the experiment is actually teaching.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Emily! Becci, I think this is a great thing to research. I also remember doing all these "experiements" in school, but now that I have learned about actual science inquiry and experiments I realize that what we were doing was just fun activities! I believe there is a way for teachers to do science inquiry and experiemtns with students and still make it fun. They must just be willing to research and learn about the topics and experiments first.
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