Abby Borth- Elementary Science Methods

  1. In lab this week, we first observed our fast-growing plants. I was surprised to see how much they had grown from last week and excited to see that we now had flowers. After this we finished up our activity from last week where we were given an ecosystem to research. I learned what would happen to an ecosystem if danger presents itself. For the tundra, climate change caused the ecosystem to warm up too much for some plants to survive. This made some animals in the food chain migrate and the whole food chain to be disrupted. Following this activity, we learned a lot about turtles by reading a book and participating in the activity, "Turtle, Turtle Watch Out". I learned that turtles are independent as soon as they hatch and go into the sea but many do not survive because of natural causes as well as by humans. I learned that only one in 1000 turtles will survive!  4. I can apply what I have learned to my teaching in the future by using my own knowledge on turtles. I can edu...

  1. This week in lab, we started class by checking the status of our fast plants and butterflies. I was surprised to see how much are fast plant had grown since last week. We now have one butterfly as well. I was introduced to the topic of Ecology, I believe I have learned this before but it was a good refresher. I learned that Ecology is the study of the relationship between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. I was also able to learn what biomes, ecosystems, and habitats are and the difference among the three. I was also able to revisit the topic of food chains and webs and learn how these revolve around the flow of energy and matter.  4. I can apply what I have learned to my future teaching when teaching students about Ecology and food chains and webs. I would like to use our third activity in my future teaching. This is where we were assigned an ecosystem and had the task of creating a food chain for it with 8-10 relevant animals and plants...

  1. This week in lab, I learned about the 5E method to teaching science. I had not heard of this method beforehand. We had the opportunity to make a presentation with our group to share with the rest of the class on this method and the roles that students and teachers have. I learned that the 5E method consists of Explain, Explore, Engage, Elaborate, and Evaluate. Each of these steps with the definition is listed below. This is an effective method to capture students' interest in the topic being taught and building off their own understanding to then deepen this understanding and apply it.  Engage: Activities that capture the student's attention Explore: Helps students build off the prior knowledge they have Explain: Providing information about a concept being taught  Elaborate: Having students apply the knowledge that was learned Evaluate: Testing knowledge and abilities learned 4. I can apply what I have learned to my teaching in the future by using this method. I beli...

  1. This week in lab, we learned about the life cycles of mealworms and butterflies as well as the lifecycle of plants. We first looked at the body parts of a mealworm and I learned that mealworms have three distinct sections with 13 body segments. I also refreshed my memory on the life cycle of a mealworm that goes from eggs to mealworm to pupa to beetle. After this, we learned about the life cycle of a butterfly through an activity with Playdough. On a paper plate, we built the lifecycle of a butterfly using play dough and markers. We then looked at the life cycle of plants and observed how our lima bean plant had grown. After this, we planted our fast plants which is pictured last.  2. I was able to relate what I learned to what I already knew because I had done similar activities to these three in elementary and middle school. In elementary school, we learned about the life cycle of a butterfly by having our own butterfly habit and observing this. I had previously known t...

  1. This week in lab, we learned about living things and their characteristics. After discussing the 8 core characteristics of living things and how to differentiate between living and nonliving things, we started our first activity. To visualize the characteristics of living things, we created an anchor chart in our groups that listed the eight characteristics with an explanation and picture to go along with it. Through this I was able to learn more and refresh my memory on these characteristics. I learned the characteristics are cellular composition, genetics and heredity, maintaining homeostasis, growth and change, movement, responding to stimuli, metabolism, and reproduction. I also learned how to define these characteristics in my own words. I was also able to learn more about the difference between dormant and active by looking at seeds. We germinated seeds so we can watch them grow into seedlings. I also learned about the structure of seeds through our seed dissection activ...

  1. The question that we investigated in this lab was, "What would you like your future classroom to look like?" While designing our classrooms some other questions we thought about were the resources that we wanted to provide students, what we valued as a future educator, and something that makes it unique to us such as a favorite color.  2. To investigate the question of what we would like our future classroom to look like, we were paired into groups. In these groups, we were given a piece of paper to model what we would like our classroom to look like. We were able to brainstorm with each other about what we would like in our future classroom before modeling it on a piece of paper and sharing our ideas with the class.  3. I figured out through our question and investigation an idea of what my future classroom would look like and what I would like to include in it. I was able to figure out that I would like my desks arranged in groups for collaboration among stude...