Skyping with the Experts

One big step at a time... That is how this project is unfolding.  As I have shared, I traveled to Boston to visit with many of the Earthwatch scientist in November, in the hopes of lining up expert volunteers to Skype with our science students about their work with endangered species.

Well, it is happening!  So far, we have Skyped with Panda's International, Polar Bears International, and the lead Grizzly Bear expert at Yellowstone National Park.  It really is amazing how cool it is for my students to get to have a conversation with someone who darts polar bears from helicopters then radio collars them to track them remotely, or talk to folks who have personally worked with the baby panda that sneezes and scares its mother.

My goal in starting this program was to show my students in a suburban school in Alabama, the variety of ways that scientist work around the world.  So far, I feel like this program is meeting this goal.

Tips I have learned that other teachers trying to do this might benefit from:

• For the most part, I have had about a 75% success rate of getting a response from  a scientist with initially contacting them via e-mail. 
• Most scientist are thrilled to have a teacher reach out to them.  They often work for organizations with an education mission and want to be involved in K-12 education but have no idea how to get in touch with the right teacher.  
• We do our skype sessions during a club time.  All 7th graders have two 30 minute blocks of clubs on Wednesday and Friday.  Students are invited to attend the skype that pertains to their species.  
• When I invite scientist, I let them know of our time slot. 
• We are having some difficulty with scientist who work for the National Park Service and issues with Skype.  As a result, some of those interviews will be done through a phone conversation. 

Earthwatch Summit: Harvard University

While in Thailand, Connie and I interviewed all of the researchers and the other volunteers.  One of the questions we asked was, "What advice would you give to our 7th grade students who want to do something really cool like this?"  Overwhelmingly and independently everyone said, "Don't hesitate to call up or e-mail the experts.  Chances are, they love their work so much, they would love to talk to anyone who will listen." 


Fast forward to the start of the school year, and thus, the start of our yearlong projects on endangered species.  As a department we meet at least once a week, if not more, to plan, analyze data, and look for cross curricular and real world connections.  It was at one of those meetings we wondered "what if we were able to find experts on the species that our students have chosen to focus on and set up interviews through Skype with our students?"

Naturally, this led to another amazing opportunity.  I followed the advice we received on our expedition,  I called the experts in connecting with ambitious scientist:  Earthwatch!  After chatting with folks there I was invited to attend Earthwatch's annual summit held at Harvard University's Science Center.  This was a big deal.  As teachers, getting to go to a science summit is a rare treat.  We are fortunate in our profession and especially in our district to have lots of professional development.  Most processional development however is centered around the art of teaching and not as often on the content that we teach.  As a science enthusiast I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to be immersed with conservation scientist from around the world.

My primary goal for the conference was to line up around fifteen scientist who study, work with and/or research the species that my students have chosen to adopt and advocate for throughout the year, to do a 30 minute Skype interview this spring.  I am happy to say that after lots of networking, e-mailing, and collaborating I now have some folks that are excited about the work we are doing, and thrilled to help out with our project.

More to come soon.

The Science of Smart

A personal passion of mine is to continue learning about how our brain works so that as a teacher I can use this knowledge to create effective learning experiences in my classroom. I am fortunate to work in a school and with a department that loves this sort of stuff too.

With all of that said, I listened to a great podcast on American Radio Works a few weeks back about the  "Science of Smart".  One key idea I walked away with was the importance of interlooping.  The main purpose of interlooping is to regularly and repeatedly ask students to refer back to, recall and apply previously taught concepts.  All too often, out students learn the information, we test on it, and move onto the mountain of other standards we need to teach.

This year, however, we are trying to be extremely conscious of bringing back and keeping relevant old topics again and again.  One big way we are doing it is through their species project.  So, as we wrapped up our unit on cells and the organizational levels of life, students were asked to look for unique features of their species at each level of life.

This is my example using the Asian Elephants.  Students needed to look for how their species fit into each level of life all the way from the biome to cells.  

At the end of the year we are planning on having an expo where students present all of the background information about their species prior to designing a PR campaign to help save the species from extinction.  The hope is that as they revisit these pages of their book at the end of the year they will have a chance to teach others about the levels of life through the lens of their animal, and apply this knowledge for a plan forward.

Seeking Expert Help

Ok, for those who know me in real life, you might have read the title and thought about time.  Well, think again, because it is not for me, and not that kind of help.  As we are diving into this year long project another pie in the sky idea has come to me.

See, when we were in Thailand we decided to interview all of the Think Elephants International research assistance.  One of the questions we asked each of them was "If you could give our 7th graders one piece of advice on how to get a cool job like this, what would it be?"  Everyone of them responded with a very similar answer.  "If you are passionate about something, find out who the expert is and pick up the phone and call them, Skype with them, or send them an e-mail.  Chances are they would love to talk to someone young and enthusiastic about their work."

So, here is what I (we really) want to do.  We want all of our students to make contact and hopefully interview a scientist who works with their species.  With that said, now we need to find some great folks out there who would be willing to either A) commit to skyping with a small group of kids for one 30 min. session this spring B) participate in an e-mail interview C) a phone interview.

Here is the list of animals that I need to find experts to match with kids.  So internet world here is how you can help.  Pass this post on to the people you know and have them contact me in the comments section or e-mail me at karon.decker@trussvillecityschools.com

·         Giant Otter

·         Giant Panda

·         Cheetah

·         African Elephants

·         Black Footed Ferret

·         Forest Owlet

·         Green Sea Turtle

·         Polar Bear

·         Florida Manatees

·         Siberian Tiger

·         Blue Macaw

·         Mountain Gorilla

·         Orangutan

·         African Wild Dog

·         Desert Fox

·         Red Panda

·         Snow Leport

·         Golden Lion Tamerin

·         Sand Cat

·         Aye-Aye Lemur

·         Asiatic Lion

·         Irrawaddy Dolphin

·         Leatherback Sea Turtle

·         Malayan Sun Bear

·         Bangle Tiger

·         Golden Mantled Tree Kangaroo

·         Red Wolf

·         Amur Leopard

·         Ethiopian Wolf

·         California Condor

·         Black Rhino

·         Hawaiian Monk Seal

·         Javan Rhino

·         Chimpanzee

·         Red Deer

·         Dwarf Crocodile

·         Florida Panther

·         Columbian night monkey

·         Galapagos Penguin  

·         Grizzly Bears

·         Borneo Pygmy Elephants

Words of wisdom so far...

The year is here and the project is off and running.  We have big goals for our students, and lots of stairs to climb to get there.  Because this is a new way for us to teach I want this blog to be a reflective tool to share not only the products and assignments but also to show the necessary rethinking of work, students attitudes, and what we as teachers are learning along the way.

Quotes from students when picking their animal:
"Mrs. Decker, have you seen the World Wildlife Web site?  It is the coolest.  I am going to be reading through all of this tonight."

"Did you know that you can really adopt a panda bear?  What if I convince everyone to give one dollar towards adoption.  Our class could really help one and then next year another and so on.  We really could do something."

"I am totally protecting the cheetahs because they are fast like me."

"My family symbolically adopted the red panda at the zoo, and I can't wait to see what else I can do to help it."

"Did you know that mountain gorillas are caught in the middle of a civil war?  I never thought about the impact war might have on wildlife.  I guess we need to also figure out peace in the country for people so the animals can have peace too."

Species Students have Picked:
I am sure this list is going to be incomplete, but these are the main ones I remember from their introduction letters.  One concern that we have is that almost all of them are vertebrate mammals.  We recognize that this is a natural tenancies, but as teachers we are still working on how to increase the diversity of organisms represented in this project.  One idea is that advance students would have to chose a companion species from a different class or organisms.  For example from the Think Elephant International Blog
"Elephant dung also provides an important food source for other species. Many species will feed on elephant dung as it is a treasure cove of nutrients. These species include ground hornbills, banded mongooses, velvet monkeys, baboons and many insect species. For dung beetles, elephant dung is extremely important. The beetles roll balls of dung and bury them to store as a food supply for their larvae. This then provides the honey badgers with a rich food source as they will then dig up the dung beetle balls and feed off the plump grubs inside.

Orangutans, Gorillas, Aye Aye, Chimpanzees
Green Sea Turtles and leather back sea turtles
Black Footed Farretts
Black Rino
Dwarf Crocodile
African elephants
Golden Lion Tamerin
California Condor, Macaw
Fin whale, norwall
Kamono Dragon
Sun Bear, polar bear
Giant Panda
Grey Wolf, Red Wolf, African Wild Dogs
Manatee

How are we as teachers using data and student interest to drive our project design: 
So I have a confession.  I am a TED talk addict.  I am a TEDx Birmingham teaching fellow and regularly attend local TEDx salon events in my community, where no joke, a bunch of other TED junkies get together, watch TED talks and discuss.  My other confession is that I rarely sleep.  Together, this means I have a lot of nights where I listen to TED talks.  Last night I listened to this great Geoffrey Canada "Our Failing Schools: Enough is Enough"  Go ahead watch it.  It is worth the time.  If you did (or didn't watch it) the big idea I got lat night was:  Why does education spend billions of dollars on high stakes test that we get back the next year and rarely do anything with the results.  
We are fortunate to work for a school that has realized that ignoring the data and moving forward is not a useful habit.  The first full week of school we sat down as a department and analyzed the results from the Alabama Science Assessment to see how we did last year.  We were able to see huge gains in areas like our bodies, systems and tissues unit and meiosis.  We were also able to flag areas where our students struggled like abiotic and biotic variables in an ecosystem, plants, classification  and ecology.  Some of the low scores are just a result of the content being covered after the test, but some we feel they did poorly because of how much time we dedicated to the unit, or that students failed to find the relevance of the topic and thus probably took the unit test, and promptly dumped the information out of their crowded brains.

What is cool about this process and the work we did this summer with Earthwatch and Think Elephants International is we have a clear cool experience to bring almost every unit back to our experience and the big year long species project that students are working on.  Now, as a result of the data, and seeing science in action, students will create a book with a section for each unit as it relates to their species.  In the spring students will present all they have learned in some kind of public forum.  Our goal for the background information presentations will be two fold.  1)  Students will be able to form meaningful connections with the application of each concept taught throughout the year.  2)  Students can receive feedback and suggestions from their peers before moving forward with their capstone project of creating a public relations campaign for their species.

Other cool insights:
I feel that we should all get sponsored to participate in the Earthwatch Giant Panda research project this summer, because lots of students are choosing them.  Just saying...

Thanks Fund For Teachers!

Coexisting with the Biotic and Abiotc parts of the ecosystem

So, with all great new things comes trial and error.  Kim (one of the three daring science teachers) had her students in the lab yesterday working on this assignment and realized that some tweaking was necessary, so Connie revised the template for students to use when researching the abiotic and biotic needs of their organism.

Define:

Biotic Factors - _________________________________________________________________________________________

Abiotic Factors - ________________________________________________________________________________________

BIOTIC FACTORS- Use complete sentences to answer the following:

A) What does your animal species eat?  B) Is it an omnivore, carnivore or herbivore?  Why is this?	List and describe three plants species that exist in same habitat as your animal.
List and describe three other animal species that coexist with your animal.	List any predators of your animal species – (those that eat your animal).
Describe any interactions that your animal species has with humans.  What types of conflicts are taking place here?	Describe a biotic factor that your animal species might use for shelter?

ABIOTIC FACTORS- Use complete sentences to answer the following:

Where does your species live?  Be specific- include country, state, geographic region, etc.	What bodies of water does your animal live in or near?
What biome does your animal live in?	How much rainfall does your animal’s biome receive yearly?
What is the average temperature range of your animal’s biome?	What type of soil exists in your animal’s biome? (If your animal has an ocean biome, list other abiotic factors that can be found in the ocean.)

  




This is the second major assignment that students will complete for their year long species project.  This is the example I will use for them, and they will compile similar information for their species.

Your Name: ____Mrs. Decker

7^th Grade Life Science

Species Common Name:  _Asian Elephant___

Species Scientific Name: __Elephas  maximus__

Directions:  Research to find out the living things that your species coexist with (eats, uses for shelter, symbiotic relationships, ect.) List and describe at least four biotic species below that exist with your species.  Research the abiotic (non-living) parts of its habitat also.  (Ideal temperature, soil types, topography (shape of the land), water needs ect.)  You need to fill in at least four of the sections in the abiotic column.

Biotic	Abiotic
Definition: Something that is living or was once living	Definition: Something that is non-living and never was alive
Asian Elephants Eat: roots, grasses, fruit, and bark, and they eat a lot of these things. An adult elephant can consume up to 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of food in a single day. They are herbivores	Location Where does your species live?  Country/state geographic area?	Asian mainland, including India and Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia.  Elephants are also found on the islands of Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Borneo r.
Human interactions and conflict:  Humans and elephants do not make great neighbors.  Elephants can harm humans if angered (mostly males during mating season.)  Humans also poach elephants for their tusk.  Efforts are being made in Southeast Asia on helping humans and elephants coexist.	Biome	Rainforest with intermixed meadows and grasslands
Predators:  Young are in danger from tigers and lions but there are no known predators for adult elephants.	Ideal temperature range	Not much is mentioned about their temperature needs, but they do live in the tropics where there are no distinct seasons and it is typically warm all you around.
Other plants in their habitat:  These elephants spend the evenings in dense forest and typically spend the foraging part of the day in meadows and grasslands.  Deforestation of their habitats is one of the major reasons for them becoming endangered.	Water consumption needs	An elephant will consume between 18-55 gallons of water a day.
Other animals in their habitat: No specific information was found about this.	Bodies of water it lives in or near	They must have a good source of freshwater.  They will use their tusk to dig for water when necessary.  This helps out other animals that share their habitat.
	Sunlight needs	There are no specific sunlight needs mentioned for elephants
	Terrain/topography what is the shape of the land where it lives?  Mountains, hills, streams, ect.	Asian elephants typically live in hilly rainforest terrain. They are important to their ecosystem because their dung provides needed fertilizer for the soil and they churn up the ground and make pathways of light and passageways through dense areas as they travel.  The density of the forest where they live makes it difficult to study Asian elephants in the wild.

Choosing your own species

The first assignment is almost here for our year long project.  This is what we are asking our students to do.  Hopefuly we will have a few great samples to share once the letters start rolling in. 

Dear Reader Directions:

Science is going to be SO amazing this year that you are going to get to write a book about it!  All great books have a great author behind them and it is important to the reader (me) to know you.  I want this to be a page (or two) where you introduce yourself. 

You might be wondering, “What is my book going to be about?”  This year, we are trying something new.  We asking each 7^th grader to choose a threatened or endangered species that you are going to adopt and advocate for throughout the year.  At the end of each unit, you will add a new section to your book about how the topic relates to your chosen species. 

Directions:  Type a three paragraph letter telling the reader about you, your interests, your family, and the animal you are choosing to focus on this year and why.

Choosing an animal:

Use the websites below of threatened or endangered species and choose one that interests you.  Be sure to read the information provided about your animal and choose wisely.  You may not change species in the middle of the year!  Your animal must be chosen from one of these four websites unless you ask the teacher for approval of a different species. 

 

http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/vanishing.htm

https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/directory?direction=desc&sort=extinction_status

http://www.earthsendangered.com/

http://www.allaboutwildlife.com/ten-most-endangered-animals

Grading: 

Task	What is expected	Points Possible	Points Earned
Name, date, and formatting.	Letter should be typed - handwritten letter will not receive full credit.  It should include your first and last name in the first paragraph and be signed at the bottom.  The date should be present	10
First paragraph	Introduction of the author (you), information about your family, your interests and activities/hobbies.	10
Second Paragraph	Explain what animal your book will be about; tell a little bit about the animal, why you chose it and why it is endangered. Include which website you used to choose your animal.	10
Third Paragraph	What do you need to learn in order to help your animal survive?  Come up with five questions to explore this year so that you are better prepared to help your species.	10
Pictures (2)	Include one of you and one of your animal.	10
Total		50