In an effort to make sponges more interesting for my students (a challenge for sure!), I came across this fine song by Jake Shields. Enjoy!
High School Biology Memory Game
One of the activities I like to do during the 1st week of class is a Biology Memory Game. I adapted this particular game from my mentor teacher at Merrimack Valley High School (Kristin Anderson), and have found it to be a great way to assess both student personalities and background knowledge in the subject area. High school students seem to love playing games that remind them of things they enjoyed when they were younger, and Memory is a game that fits that bill perfectly. The twist here is that they need to share something they know about each term in order to keep the match – if they aren’t able to, or their partners (or I) judge their information to be incorrect, the cards go back on the table and can be stolen by another player.
As they are playing, I circulate around, chat about terms that they are struggling with, and resolve debates about whether definitions of terms that are put forth are accurate and/or sufficiently informative. I usually offer a bonus point and a prize (candy from my prize bin) to the winner of each group – it’s amazing how competitive they can get when rewards are involved .The file I can be viewed below, or you can make a copy of the Google Doc here – feel free to make a copy for yourself. The terms are easily modifiable to suit your needs, and I have made equivalent versions for my Zoology and Physical Science Courses (happy to share those as well if there is interest – leave a comment). To make the cards, print out the file and use a photocopier to convert from one-sided to two-sided with the backings on the opposite side of the term (so they can see through the paper easily. I have laminated a set that I reuse every year (laminators are a great investment – I have had good luck with this one from Scotch).
Link to Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13NXtJMEg3rmhxz3QgvfpEjv-LjHzdrRCwlun3ZqhnzM/edit?usp=sharing
Teaching the Scientific Method and Experimental Design: Notes, Activities, Worksheets, Labs
I have mixed feelings about teaching the scientific method as it is traditionally presented. Though I see value in using it as a model for how science is done, too often it is presented as a rigid set of steps that must be followed in order. The reality is that, in practice, scientists rarely follow the scientific method step by step. Rather, the steps might be shuffled, and some might be skipped or omitted. Some science is merely observational – describing patterns found in nature, and might not even involve a true hypothesis.
All this being said, I still do start each year with a unit on the scientific and experimental design. I find the latter to be particularly important, and most of my time is spent on teaching students about how to design experiments, how to analyze data, etc. Below are some of the materials I have used in my classes:
Notes: Scientific Method Notes Teacher Version | Scientific Method Student Guided Notes
Slides: Scientific Method and Experimental Design
Experimental Design Practice Worksheet
Experimental Design in Google Slides Activity
Inquiry Lab: Water Flea Cardiovascular Physiology – coming soon!
Fatigue and Heart Rate Experimental Design Lab
Classroom Activity: Experimental Design in Google Slides
When teaching the scientific method and experimental design to high school students, one of my favorite activities is one in which they work in groups to create a simple controlled experiment on a single slide. The instructions are simple – they have to create an experiment using images only, and it can address any question they want (scientific or non-scientific – they get really creative!). They present the slide to the class, and the class has to determine the question, hypothesis, control/experimental groups, independent/dependent variables, and 3 constants. Students are graded based on the ease with which we can determine the various experimental design elements from the slide.
Here are two examples that I created as models:
I use Google Slides for this since it is super easy for them to import Creative Commons licensed images using the “Insert Image” button and the search box that comes up, and it syncs nicely with Google Classroom. Students have a lot of fun coming up with questions and trying to find good images, and I circulate and critique their experiments as they work through the activity. Some examples of experimental questions that students have come up with include:
- Effect of perfume application on the Beast’s love for Belle
- Effect of car speed on the likelihood that Harambe will crash a sports car on an icy road
- Effect of lemonade consumption on how much an audience will enjoy a performance by Lemonade Mouth
The links below provide the Google Slide template that I post on Google Classroom, the instructions for the activity, and the rubric I use to grade them. Enjoy!
Experimental Design in Google Slides – Activity Instructions
Experimental Design in Google Slides – Template Slide With Sample Experiments
Science Song: A Musical Memorial for Lonesome George
I was showing a video about the Galápagos Islands to my Zoology class yesterday, and during a segment on the giant tortoises a student asked me the name of the tortoise that died that was the last of his species on one of the islands. I hadn’t heard about this particular tortoise, so I did some research online and found the story of Lonesome George.
George was a male tortoise on Pinta Island in the Galápagos, and the vegetation on the island had essentially been wiped out by invasive goats (brought in by humans). The destruction led to a crash in the tortoise population, and eventually George was the last tortoise of his species left. George was relocated to another island Galápagos, and efforts were made to find him a mate to try and continue his line. Sadly, efforts to produce offspring with tortoises from other islands proved unsuccessful, and George passed away in 2012. His species is now considered to be extinct.
I found the memorial song below on YouTube. It’s a sad song, and one of my students claimed that she was on the verge of tears after watching it. That being said, sometimes a visceral reaction like this can create a lasting memory of the effects that humans can have on populations of living organisms on this planet. It’s definitely worth watching.
How does a cheetah run so fast?
One of the joys of teaching a zoology class is that there are so many amazing stories to tell about how different animals are uniquely adapted to their lifestyle/environment. One such story is about why the cheetah so fast. Their springy, springy spine, and leg muscles dominated by fast twitch fibers (among other things) allow them to max speeds of around 70 mph as they chase their prey. Cheetah’s are marvelously adapted for speed, and the videos below do a great job demonstrating this.
The first video, from National Geographic, explains in more detail how cheetahs were built to sprint.
The second video provides some of the raw footage taken of the cheetah running in slow motion – truly amazing!
Kahoot! Review Quizzes: High School Physical Science
Below is a list of Kahoot! review games I have either created or duplicated + edited for a Physical Science class at Coe Brown Northwood Academy in Northwood, NH. I tend to use these as review activities the day before a quiz or test, and the students love them. I also give prizes (candy, bonus points, etc.) to the five players on the leaderboard at the end of each game.
Let me know if you catch any errors in any of them!
- Scientific Method
- Standards of Measurement
- Energy
- Thermal Energy
- Electricity
- Plate Tectonics
- States of Matter I and States of Matter II
- Pressure and Gas Laws
- Elements, Compounds and Mixtures
- Physical and Chemical Properties of Matter
- Atomic Structure
- Chemical Formulas and Electron Configurations
- Radioactivity
- Chemical Bonding and Periodic Table
- Motion, Speed and Velocity
- Acceleration
- Friction and Terminal Velocity
- Balanced and Unbalanced Forces
- Newton’s Laws
Teaching Tool: Digital Lesson Planner in Google Sheets
Over the past few years I’ve pretty much converted all of my teaching materials into Google Docs/Sheets/Slides. I also tend to prefer digital record keeping rather than paper – for example, I no longer use a traditional planner for writing out my lesson plans book. Instead, I created a plan book in Google Sheets, which allows me to have easy access from any computer, and is easily modifiable without having to erase anything.
My school uses an unusual rotating daily bell schedule, but I thought I’d make equivalent versions for some of the more popular bell schedules and share them here. Click on the links below to access each View-Only version in Google Slides – you can then click File —-> Make a Copy… to make a duplicate that you can modify yourself. On each spreadsheet you can right click on the Week 1 tab at the bottom and create a duplicate page for each week.
If there are any common schedules that I have missed, leave a comment and I’ll try to make one and post it here.
Hope these are helpful!
Planner 1 – Four Block Schedule
Planner 2 – 8 Period Schedule
Planner 3 – Four Block A/B Schedule
Planner 4 – Four Block, Four Day Schedule with One 8 Period Day
I also have a Google Sheets attendance roster and gradebook, click here to access these.