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Alaska Science Educator's Sources for Lesson Plans & Ideas:
Science education related websites are listed below. If you have
a favorite link to lesson plans, please forward your link with a brief
explanation to the web manager at "sciencewebguy at mac.com"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our company publishes
science games and books, and we provide free weekly science and multi-subject
puzzlers by email, for grades 3-8.
We're now over 4,500 teachers, through whom 300,000 students do Cogno
science puzzlers each week, and we would like to keep spreading the
word.
Jermaine Duffis
Content Development Associate
Cogno Products
201 S. Central Ave., Suite 311
St. Louis, MO 63105
314.721.9199 314.721.9299 Fax
www.cogno.com
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CELEBRATE SUN-EARTH DAY 2008
Sun-Earth Day is comprised of a series of programs and events that
occur throughout the year culminating with a celebration on or near
the Spring Equinox, which is March 20 in 2008. The theme for this year's
Sun-Earth Day is "Space Weather Around the World". Middle
schools are invited to interact with scientists to learn about solar
science, solar energy and career choices. Various events [including
one at Goddard with home schoolers] will prepare the audiences to watch
a total solar eclipse on August 1, 2008 via a live webcast from China.
Visit the Sun-Earth Day 2008 Website at http://sunearthday.nasa.gov to link to educational resources, multimedia tools, and a calendar
of upcoming events for formal and informal education. Following are
just a few of the items you will find:
Solar Week – March 17-21
During the week of March 17, Solar Week will be open to registered
users for activities and online discussion. There will also
be a one-hour NASA Edge Vodcast - http://www.nasa.gov/nasaedge about Sun-Earth Day, Solar Week and Space Weather Action Center.
Technology through Time: What Causes an Auroral Storm?
http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2008/TTT/61_auroral.php
The rapidly changing spectacle of an auroral storm dazzles the eye
with intense explosions of colors and forms, but their origins are
still not fully understood. Read the latest in this series to
learn more.
In the News! A Problem Based Learning Activity
http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/inthenews/
Since the launch of the SOHO spacecraft, there have been numerous news
articles highlighting discoveries about the Sun. This activity will
give you and your students the opportunity to learn about those discoveries
and to explore the unique challenges that humans face as we prepare
for our journeys to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
Polar Gateways: Barrow, Alaska
NASA’s Sun-Earth Day team traveled to Barrow, Alaska to join
scientists from all over the world during the "Polar Gateways
Arctic Circle Sunrise 2008" conference. While there, the Sun-Earth
Day team presented a live Webcast and produced three on-location podcasts.
Subscribe to the podcasts or download the mp3 files at http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2008/multimedia/barrow.php
Eclipse Aug. 1, 2008 – Live Webcast
Planned from China
NASA’s Sun-Earth Day team is partnering with the San Francisco
Exploratorium to produce a live total solar eclipse Webcast and broadcast
from China, on Aug. 1, 2008. Save the date for exciting activities
museums will be able to do for their visitors. More details to
come later in 2008; bookmark:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/ --- http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/ --- http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2008/TSE2008.htm
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POLAR-PALOOZA NATIONAL TOUR CONTINUES IN 2008
POLAR-PALOOZA, the national tour, features high-energy
public presentations entitled "Stories from a Changing Planet," tales
of adventure and science told by a charismatic cast of characters,
and uses HD video and authentic props - such as a piece of ice core
3,000 or more years old or caribou and seal skin mukluks (boots) -
to bring polar research to life; 3-day visits to each site; special
programs for schools and under-served youngsters; workshops for K-12
educators and museum volunteers; briefings for local news media and
business leaders; and camp-ins for Boys and Girls Clubs. The
National Science Foundation and NASA sponsor POLAR-PALOOZA.
To see what cities and sites will be on the national tour in 2008,
go to: http://passporttoknowledge.com/polar-palooza/pp04.php
Upcoming events during March-May are:
March 13-14 – Washington, DC, National Geographic Society
April 17-19 - Salt Lake City, Utah Museum of Natural History
April 21-22 - Norman, OK, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
May 4-6 - Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage Museum of History and Art
May 8-10 - Fairbanks, Alaska, University of Alaska Museum of the North
May 24-25 - Raleigh, NC Museum of Natural Sciences
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NAME THAT SPACE TELESCOPE
Deadline for Suggestions: March 31, 2008
Would you like to name the next great space telescope? Here's your
chance. NASA is inviting the general public from around the world to
suggest a new name for the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, otherwise
known as GLAST, before it launches in mid-2008. GLAST is designed to
probe the most violent events and exotic objects in the cosmos from
gamma-ray bursts to black holes and beyond.
All suggestions will be considered. The period for accepting names
closes on March 31, 2008. Participants must include a statement of
25 words or less about why their suggestion would be a strong name
for the mission. Multiple suggestions are encouraged.
For the full guidelines and to submit a suggestion for the mission
name, go to: http://glast.sonoma.edu/glastname.
Anyone who drops a name into the "Name That Satellite!" suggestion
box on the Web page can choose to receive a "Certificate of Participation" via
return e-mail. They can also choose to receive a press release notifying
them of the selected name, which will be announced about two months
after launch, which is planned for mid-May.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPACE MATH PROBLEMS OF THE WEEK
Problem 119 GALEX - A Star Sheds a Comet Tail! (Grade
level: 8-10)
The GALEX satellite captured a spectacular image of the star Mira shedding
a tail of gas and dust nearly 13 light years long. Students use the
GALEX image to determine the speed of the star, and to translate the
tail structures into a timeline extending to 30,000 years ago.
[Skills: Image scaling; Unit conversion; Calculating speed from distance
and time]
Problem 120 Benford's Law (Grade level: 8-10)
Students explore a relationship called Benford's Law, which describes
the frequency of the integers 1-9 in various data. This law is used
by the IRS to catch fraudulent tax returns, but also applies to astronomical
data and other surprising situations.
[Skills: Calculating frequency tables; Histogramming; Statistics]
Problem 121 MESSENGER - Ice on Mercury? (Grade level: 8-10)
Since the 1990's, radio astronomers have mapped Mercury. An outstanding
curiosity is that in the polar regions, some craters appear to have
'anomalous reflectivity' in the shadowed areas of these craters. One
interpretation is that this is caused by sub-surface ice. The MESSENGER
spacecraft hopes to explore this issue in the next few years. In this
activity, students will measure the surface areas of these potential
ice deposits and calculate the volume of water that they imply.
[Skills: Area of a circle; volume, density, unit conversion]
Teachers' Domain as reviewed by Education-World
CONTENT:
Teachers'
Domain, produced by WGBH Educational Foundation, provides
a free multimedia digital library of k-12 resources for science
teachers and students. It includes a collection of classroom ready
resources, multimedia lesson plans, and professional development
resources.
REVIEW:
Teachers' Domain supports science-learning experiences with media rich
resources that are high impact, engaging and interactive. Life
science is the focus of the site and topics include ecology, evolution,
genetics, the cell and more. Each of the resources is geared to
a specific grade level and correlated to state and national standards.
Teachers will find classroom ready video clips, interviews, web-based
interactive activities, photographs, animations, images, and text
transcriptions from original sources, along with contextual information
and lesson plans for effective use in the classroom. Registered
users can create sets of resources on a specific topic and save
them to share with their students. Students could also use this
feature to create a multimedia report on a given topic. Additionally,
there are videos of best practice teaching available for professional
development purposes. This is a rich resource that science teachers
will not want to miss!