Instructify

BY DAVID BARGER

Ahh, summer! Nothing brings out the desire to spend time outdoors like sunshine and long days. Cookouts, beach trips, amusement parks…there are plenty of ways to enjoy our summer days. But when the allergies and mosquitoes and 100-degree days inevitably arrive, some seek out more indoor pursuits. You can have the best of both worlds when you explore America’s National Parks from the comfort of your own home with the photos and multimedia collection at the National Park Service website.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Summertime means fishing, camping trips, taking Junior to the zoo, and hitting the beach. All of those activities put you into contact with the wonders (or if you’re unlucky, the terrors) of the animal kingdom. July’s random roundup brings you the best Instructify posts that feature critters other than humans.

Tune in to The Great Turtle Race
The Great Turtle Race raises public awareness of leatherback turtle migration, plus threats to the creature’s survival, through the magic of sports. The site has lots of nifty race stats, such as how many hour-long dives each turtle makes. You can cheer on your favorite turtle, and elect to receive daily updates on how it’s doing in the field.

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BY REBECCAH HAINES

Kids these days, you know?  They don’t care about the state of the world.  They don’t care about endangered species.  They don’t care about the environment.  If you’re a teacher, you’ve probably heard statements such as these (and maybe even thought them a few times yourself in moments of frustraction).  It is up to us as educators to broaden our students’ horizons and give them a reason to care.  Field Trip Earth is one place you can go to expose them to some world views, and hopefully inspire them to conserve.

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Your students may or may not know the importance of estuaries. They may not even know what they are. You can solve both of those knowledge deficiencies by taking them on an online field trip to Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in coastal Alabama. EstuaryLive presents two live broadcasts from Weeks Bay on May 15 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Eastern time.

Your students can learn about estuary wildlife, ecosystems, as well as the threats each of those components face. Since it’s live, you and your class can interact with the field trip leaders (check the technical requirements to make sure you can view this virtual field trip without any net-based hangups). If you can’t make the May 15 broadcasts, you can view archived field trips as well.

EstuaryLive is a great opportunity to learn a lot about environmental science without having to trudge through the mud. -BILL FERRIS

EstuaryLive

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Go hug a tree at the the Sustainable Forestry Teachers’ Academy

Photo credit: DCSL on Flickr.

Earth Day is coming up on April 22. With that holiday approaching and the glorious springtime weather, aren’t you in the mood to get outside and do something for the environment? Well, if you’re feeling this way, it is likely that under your leadership, your students can attain this feeling also. I think that one of the most current and important topics for educators feeling the “Go-Green” bug is climate change. This year, climate change has been one of my environmental education focuses with my students, and I wanted to share with you some of the excellent resources I’ve found for teaching about this important topic.

By the book

I started with a book called How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming by Lynne Cherry and Gary Braasch. This book is a great place to start teaching about climate change. It presents the scientific evidence for climate change in a straightforward, understandable, and readable way. My 7^th graders had no trouble comprehending the one to two page vignettes on serious research. Most of the chosen research highlighted in the book involved collaborations between scientists and students or other “regular” citizens. Also important for students, the book is not all gloom and doom. It presents the evidence that scientists have gathered, explains their conclusions drawn from evidence, then completely skips the “we’re all going to die” mentality that some doomsayers have, and gives students real options for taking action. As an educator, I appreciated this truthful-but-positive spin. Also as an educator, I appreciated the separate teacher’s guide for the book. While not all of the activities were flashy, it gave me some good ideas on where to start with students.

Citizen science

Inspired by the book, I have gotten my students involved in a couple of citizen science projects in which we are helping climate scientists and others track seasonal changes in wildlife and vegetation. While there are many options for this kind of involvement, the two I have chosen are Journey North’s Tulip Garden project, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Sleuth program. Both of these programs allow for what I think is an easy entry into the world of citizen science. Both also allow for online data entry and visualization, allowing you as the teacher to use that data in many ways for various projects with students. Check out this year’s tulip map and see the little red dot on Morehead City — that’s us! Journey North also offers many other data collection projects besides the tulip garden project, and most are free or cost very little to participate. For example, I spent about $40 on the tulip bulbs to plant at my school. Granted, I had received a Bright Ideas Grant from my local electrical cooperative for my climate change study, but even without the grant, a couple of parents may be willing to sponsor. The Bird Sleuth program also offers both free and paid resources that you can explore through their website.

Online tools

In addition to having my students participate in citizen science so they could get that hands-on feeling, I used several websites and blogs in my classroom. First, I happened to hear this podcast on NPR’s Science Friday just a few weeks ago. During the program, they talked about the USA National Phenology Network. In case you don’t know, phenology is the study of regular seasonal changes, and something that climate scientists study closely and use as evidence for climate change. Through this website, you (or your class) could become a phenological observer, providing valuable information to scientists nationwide. It would allow one more way for your students to get involved.

For background information, I used Windows to the Universe. It has pages of text, images, and multimedia about many earth-science topics, including climate change. An excellent feature of the site is the ability to select from three different reading levels on the text pages — a must for an inclusive classroom. Another reference is the EPA’s Climate Change for Kids site. It offers another source of text, images, games, links, and other media to help your students gain background information on climate change. Of course NASA also offers an excellent website for up-to-date information at Global Climate Change from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This website offers some interesting interactives as well as text and images to help explain the evidence for climate change. As an added benefit, you can subscribe to an RSS feed from the site. This would be a great way to integrate the information on a more regular basis in your classroom. Finally, for a more editorial point of view, I look to Dot Earth. This is a blog published by the New York Times that “examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits.” You could use posts from some of these blogs as starting points for verbal debates or position papers.

I hope I have given you some ideas that you can integrate into your classroom in celebration of Earth Day. Of course, don’t wait for Earth Day to encourage your students to get out there and make a difference. And if you’re not convinced that this is a worthwhile use of academic time, take a gander at this video. This man’s logic seems pretty solid, and all of us, especially those of us responsible for educating the next generation, need to take action and make a difference. -REBECCAH HAINES

How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate from Amazon

Journey North

Bird Sleuth

USA National Phenology Network

Windows to the Universe

EPA’s Climate Change

Global Climate Change from NASA

Dot Earth

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How to successfully debate the climate skeptic in your life

Scientific American explores whether cloud seeding works
Photo credit: CRASH-candy on Flickr.

Quick whale facts: go! Whales are a member of the Cetacea order of animals. Narwhals are the magical unicorn ones. Whales eat a variety of stuff, including marine life, plankton and wooden puppets who wish to become real boys. In a strange way, whale song audio tracks are good for both relaxation and for haunted house soundtracks. Blue whales are the big ones.

Okay, so maybe not all of those facts are true. Some might only have just a loose cultural reference, but that’s still enough to fake people into thinking you know what you’re talking about. Meanwhile, you’ve successfully made a hasty escape. Yet out of all my questionable facts, there’s no denying the one about blue whales. Accounting for weight and volume it is the largest known living animal. Need some proof? Check out this life size blue whale from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

With one giant visual that you can navigate by a smaller inset image, this is a rather creative way to demonstrate the actual dimensions as they compare to your computer screen size. Even the coolest monitor seems a bit dwarfed. Without sounding too 1997 cheesy, the internet is a window for looking out at the world — no, wait, that is too cheesy.

The WDCS wants to get the message out about the endangered status of the blue whale, with the distinct message that this might be the last life-size blue whale you see. Right there’s a nice tie-in for ecology/environmental science lessons. Moby Dick was a different species of whale, so maybe this is slightly less ideal for your Herman Melville lesson. Maybe in a technology lesson you could use it to illustrate how images appear on different monitor aspect ratios? I’m starting to grasp at straws now. If you can think of other ways to use this giant whale then share it in the comments below! –NICK YINGLING

WDCS – Life size blue whale

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Whalenet: Providing you boatloads of information since 1993

Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Briny Deep? Monsters of the Deep Sea

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkley California has an initiative known as The Edible Schoolyard. It’s a non-profit organization developed in order to find ways of cooking and gardening for young people in their everyday lives. Chef and author Alice Waters conceived the program with Principal Neil Smith and has been underway since 1997. In the school, students in the Garden Program see for the care and preparation of organic foods from “seed to table.”

This is the type of initiative that teaches students at an early age where food comes from, and what exactly it takes for their favorite meals to make their way to the table. Students plant seeds, tend crops, and harvest various organic produce, and then go on to prepare their harvest in the kitchen. Students are also encouraged to break into small groups, where they learn the value of working together in order to see their work come to life, as well as keep track of their progress in garden journals. This is a great way for students to learn about ecological principles as well as how nature is an important element in their daily lives. There is plenty of information available at The Edible Schoolyard website, where you can also learn about ways to help support the initiative, as well as tips and suggestions of ways you can begin a similar initiative in your own school. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

The Edible Schoolyard

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Food for thought about food

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