Science

Taking Flashcards Up To “Analyze”

We had a pack of animal flashcards. But my kid can already read. So here’s how we took these low-level cards up to Analyze – in three different ways.

Help my students remember these confusing terms!

If you want students to memorize, you can’t aim for memorize. You have to aim higher – and then memorization comes along for free.

Taking A Zoologist Across Disciplines

All I did was ask students to list and explain three “disciplines.” Let’s take it a bit further!

Updating Old Questions: A Mere Model of a Cell

Why are my best biologists just restating facts we already know?

Updating Old Questions: The Planets’ Order

Oops! I just asked my students to put the planets in order! Here’s what I could do differently…

Updating Old Questions: Volcano from Two Perspectives

Just because we have two perspectives doesn’t mean we have a great question!

Climbing Blooms With A Science Lesson

How I’d push a mere science demonstration to higher level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Upgrading A Research Report

So many “research reports” are really just “regurgitation re-writes.” Here’s one way to take a research report to a much more interesting level.

Pop Quiz! Rock Cycle Depth and Complexity

Here are a set of questions someone sent in. What do you think?

Thinking Like Producers About Consumers

Here’s how I’d use ethics and multiple perspectives to get students thinking about producers, consumers, and decomposers in new and interesting ways.

The Marshmallow Challenge

A fantastic fuzzy problem to start the year. Students use pasta and tape to try to get a marshmallow up as high as possible.

Creating Seemingly Unrelated Analogies

Want to encourage students to find unexpected connections across content? Here’s a quick framework based on the most important terms from both bits of content.

Creating A New Creature

We’re not doing a fluffy art project here. Kids are developing a realistic, made up creature that could have actually lived in a particular biome.

Reader Question: Unusual Animals

A reader asks how we can take the typical “look up facts online and then present with PowerPoint” task to an appropriate level of challenge.

Climbing Bloom’s Taxonomy In Science

Science should be more than memorizing facts. Let’s spice it up and push our students from the doldrums of remembering to the soaring heights of evaluation. While it’s true that this will take longer than just following a textbook, we’re not just teaching facts, we’re equipping students with the ability to make well-informed judgements.

Lunar Survival Skills

We’re supposed to rank fifteen items according to usefulness if we were stranded on the light-side of the moon. The items range from pistols to powdered milk. Some seem useful, but are actually worthless while others seem unnecessary on earth, but are actually vital when stuck on the moon. However, the structure of the activity as a website is not optimal. Let’s improve this and make it an awesome problem–solving exercise for our class.

Think Like An Engineer: Egg Drop

At our school, 6th graders participate in an annual egg drop. To increase the rigor, I looked for unique scientific roles and came up with three: designing a parachute to slow the egg’s descent, testing materials to pack inside the structure, and developing the structure itself. Each of these roles will be developed into a scientific discipline.