Good news! Thirty-three student pages on the human circulatory systemare now available for your biology or anatomy / physiology interactive notebooks.
I believe I have included a great range of content starting with the basic concepts of the circulatory system and progressing through more and more complex information. My goal was to write pages that could be used with my general science students all the way up through my AP Biology students. There are enough pages included in this product that you can easily pick and choose the perfect mix for your science class. As a result, these pages are suitable for general science students in the 8th grade, first year biology students in high school, honors biology students, anatomy and physiology students, and even advanced placement biology students.
Link up and hang out with The Nature Conservancy for a super-fun classroom virtual field trip!
Field trips are a common occurrence in schools, especially near the end of the school year. However, funds are often nonexistent, and with the crushing pressure of end of course testing, time may not be available to take the kids out of school for the day.
Tell me more! The NatureWorks Everywhere website (presented by The Nature Conservancy) offers a wide range of lessons, videos and virtual field trips for our science classrooms. The videos are highly engaging, and the downloadable free lesson plans are perfectly designed to complement and enhance your teaching.
What about the virtual field trip? The third virtual field trip is just around the corner! It is entitled: "The Coral Reefs of Palau: Nature's Amazing Underwater Cities." The mission of this field trip is to design, plan and execute a live Google Hangout for grade 3 - 8 classrooms in order to learn about the diverse ecosystem of Palau's Coral Reefs. Students will learn about the symbiotic relationships between the many organisms, the environmental dangers facing the coral reef, and how people can act to protect the reef. From the developers, "We hope the virtual field trip will build student's knowledge of and emotional connection to environmental issues that are at the heart of The Nature Conservancy's mission."
When is it? The live Google Hangout will take place on Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 12:00 pm.
What will my students learn on this virtual field trip?"Join the Nature Conservancy on a Virtual Field Trip to the Coral Reefs of Palau: a remote network of islands deep in the Pacific Ocean. Here, sharks snatch up smaller prey; decorator crabs apply bits of shell, algae, and sponge to their own backs for camouflage; and massive 2,000-pound sea cows graze. Our journey to the Coral Reefs will open students’ eyes to an amazing, interconnected ecosystem built on symbiosis and mutualism, where diverse organisms are designed to protect, clean, nourish, and even camouflage one another. In this underwater city, the coral supports its many “workers” and they, in turn, keep the coral healthy.
Called “the medicine chests of the sea,” Coral Reefs provide ingredients that are leading to new lifesaving medications. They are also an astonishingly rich source of food for many species, including humans, and provide a perfect buffer to protect shorelines from erosion. Join our expert scientist, Marine Biologist Stephanie Wear, as we take a deep dive to learn about one of the “seven underwater wonders of the world.” May 19, 2015 at 12:00 pm (ET). Length: 40 minutes."
Many of the key ecological concepts that we have been teaching all year long will be reviewed and reinforced: Symbiosis, mutualism, interactions within communities, predation, competition, food chains and food webs.
Who will be leading this virtual field trip? Marine biologist Stephanie Wear will be leading us on this adventure. Stephanie is Director of Coral Reef Conservation for The Nature Conservancy. Stephanie is articulate, engaging and explains concepts in a clear and easy to understand manner. You can take a look at one of her coral reef videos at this link: Coral Reefs - Feeding and Protecting Us.
Are there resources I can use to get prepared before we take the virtual field trip? YES!! These links will provide you with many free resources to prepare you for teaching and your students for learning.
You mentioned above that this is the third virtual field trip presented by The Nature Conservancy. Can I still view the first two fields trips? Absolutely! The first two virtual field trips can be viewed below:
Wild Biomes: From America's Rainforests to America's Deserts
Deserts and Grasslands of Africa
This sounds great! What do I do now? Be sure to sign up for the live Google Hangout. Then sit back and get ready for a fun classroom adventure!
Interactive Notebook Pages for Your Human Body Unit
Here is the next set of pages for a biology or anatomy/physiology unit on the human body. I am very pleased at how this set turned out! It is a set of 33 students pages on the skeletal, muscular and integumentary systems. The pages can be used in so many different ways. If you are into interactive note booking these pages will make excellent additions. I most often use these for warm ups and homework assignments. They can also be used for tutoring, review and reinforcement, and for your sub folders.
The following images will give you a good idea of what is included.
Click image to view product.
Many of the pages have great pictures and diagrams to enhance student learning and retention of concepts. Other pages (without diagrams) have questions that require the student to use the skills of comparing, contrasting, analyzing, critical thinking, writing and explaining.
As stated above, this set includes only the skeletal, muscular and integumentary systems. Specific titles can be seen in the images below.
The new trick in my teaching arsenal this year has been the use of a "warm-up" notebook. These pages go by many names: Warm ups, bell ringers, interactive notebooks, do-nows, exit slips. Use whatever name you want, but know this ... This technique is effective and student retention of the subject matter has soared!
I am now writing and developing a set of pages for "The Human Body." Two sets are now ready:
For this blog post, I'll focus on the first set, Introduction to the Human Body. (For blog posts on my other sets of interactive notebook pages, simply type in "interactive notebooks" into the search box at the top of my blog.)
This is the first year that I have introduced this technique into my classes, and I have been most pleasantly surprised by the response of my students. There is no moaning and groaning in my classroom,,,, the students are actually enjoying this! We are calling this a "warm up" notebook in my class. My students do these pages at the beginning of each class period, and often carry home additional pages to complete for homework. Many of the students have taken great pride in their notebooks, going above and beyond to create amazing notebooks. All of the students who at putting in at least some effort are commenting that studying has become an easier task and they are getting better grades as a result.
As I stated above, I have just begun to development the pages for the human body. The following images will provide you with some details of this set.
The student pages are half-page sizes. Two warm ups are printed on one page to help you save paper. There is no elaborate cutting, gluing, or folding required. You simply print the pages and cut them in half. A teacher answer key is provide for each and every student page.
This set includes 19 student pages. The specific titles can be seen below.
I have written these warm ups to be used with my first year Biology classes, but the pages have a good range of "easy to difficult." This makes them usable by both middle school and high school teachers.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I know that we are all getting excited that summer is just around the bend!
There's not much time left to plan! Earth Day is quickly approaching on April 22!
Has Earth Day slipped up on you this year? If you are like me, end of course testing is quickly approaching and there is hardly any time left to squeeze in anything extra. But the nature lover in me just can't let Earth Day go by without a mention in my science classes. Surely we can find 10-15 minutes on April 22 to celebrate Planet Earth. Here are some fresh ideas for your science classroom that require little to no preparation time.
First, I have a FREE Earth Day PowerPoint in my TpT store. It is about the history of Earth Day and what led to the creation of Earth Day over 40 years ago. The PowerPoint is relatively short, and can be viewed in about 10 minutes. All you have to do is download it and play it. Easy-peasy!
Next, I have just been introduced to the most fabulous site. It is called Nature Works Everywhereand is sponsored by The Nature Conservancy. It is packed full with the most wonderful videos, each of which is accompanied by free downloadable lesson plans.
From the Nature Works Everywhere site: "Nature Works Everywhere gives teachers, students and families everything they need to start exploring and understanding nature around the globe alongside Nature Conservancy scientists—interactive games, and interactive lesson plans that align to standards and can be customized for each classroom."
I love that the videos are relatively short. They are extremely interesting and cover a variety of topics and concepts. You can't go wrong by showing one of these in your class on Earth Day.
Well, I have just put the polishing touches on my 9th set of interactive notebook pages for biology. This set covers the Protista Kingdom, a topic that I always love to teach! It may not be fancy and use sophisticated technology, but a microscope and some pond water always makes for a fun time in the biology lab.
These pages can be used in so many ways. Personally, I like to use them as warm ups each and every day. I have my students keep a warm up notebook (aka interactive notebook) and I have seen a drastic improvement in the retention of content. These half-page sized mini-lessons are perfect for homework assignments, bell ringers, tutoring, and test prep.
I started this adventure at the beginning of this school year, and have been immensely pleased with the result. My earlier blog posts on this "warm up / bell ringer" topic can give you more details. All of the earlier posts can be viewed at these links:
The answer to that is ... YES!! This is the pink Lake Hillier that is found in Australia. Recently, in my Biology 1 classes, we were studying the characteristics of algae and other protists. Algae are classified according to their color, and we were discussing the fact that the algae produce pigments of various colors. There are green algae, brown algae, red algae, yellow-green algae, etc. Most of us are extremely familiar with the green "pond-scum" that we commonly see in our local lakes, streams and ponds, so I wanted to give my students some examples that would be less familiar to them.
As a result, I did a little googling to see what I could find to use in my classes. I immediately zeroed in on this pink lake. It didn't take much research to quickly realize that there are quite a few of these pink lakes around the world, and the exact cause of the "pinkness" is not completely agreed upon.
Lake Hillier seems to be the most famous of these pink lakes. In quick and easy reading format, here are the facts:
Lake Hillier is located on Middle Island. This is one of the largest islands that make up the Recherche Archipelago in Western Australia.
The lake is about 600 meters (2,000 feet) long and about 250 meters (820 feet) wide.
The lake is surrounded by a rim of sand, with a narrow strip of vegetation separating it from the Southern Ocean.
When viewed up close the color of the water is not as vibrant as when viewed from the air, but the pink color is permanent and is not a trick of the light. When a sample is taken into a container it retains the pink color.
Lake Hillier is a salt water lake. As a result, only two forms of life have been discovered living in its waters. One is the algae known as
Dunaliella salina , and the other is a halophilic (salt-loving) bacteria. These organisms produce carotenoids, giving the water a bubble gum pink color.
The salt content of the lake is comparable to the Dead Sea at about 40%
Although very salty, it is perfectly safe to swim in Lake Hillier. The only problem is that it is very hard to get there! Travel to the lake by helicopter is the most common method of travel.
Other pink lakes are found in Senegal, Canada, Spain and Azerbaijan.
