Making Science Real

......Teaching and learning science in the real world

Resources

Content Areas and Skills

Claim, Evidence, Reasoning

Student Collaboration

Resources for All Science Classes

The resources linked below provide support strategies for most any science class.

Have a TA? Here’s an editable list of TA duties and an editable contract

Science Scavenger Hunts for Biology and Chemistry

A few decades ago, I wrote a scavenger hunt for my AP Chem students to do After The Test. It’s gone through many iterations, and has been modified for a general chemistry class. A Biology version soon followed. It’s a great end-of-the-year activity as students must apply what they’ve learned all year and make connections among several concepts.

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Experimetal Error and Lab Reports

During my first few years as a science teacher, I read more student lab reports than I care to count. I became most interested in the conclusions, because I quickly learned that conclusions could be most reflective of student learning.

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The Scientific Method and the Dollar Tree

You log into Facebook, and there’s THAT friend, the grammar expert. You know, that well-meaning grammar cop who is on a personal mission to correct every grammar or spelling error, ever. We love that person, and sometimes we learn from that person. Some of us may or may not recognize ourselves in that person.

I am not that person. Oh, no. I have a far more nerdy mission.

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Collaboration: Building Collaboration Skills

I learned that I couldn’t just throw a group of kids together and tell them to ‘collaborate” and expect them to know what to do. I couldn’t just throw them an activity that’s supposed to be collaborative and expect them to know the strategies needed to make the activity work. And I certainly couldn’t just tell them what highly successful collaborative teams do and expect them to translate words into a fabulous project.

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Teaching Vocabulary

“Vocab.”

Have you heard colleagues, pre-service teachers, and students use this term? Have you watched students cringe inwardly when they hear it, as they assume there will be a session of copying definitions from a textbook or Google?

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