Keystone Weekly
volume 3, issue 21        March 4, 2002

This week's Key Points: *Kit Use: Weather (STC),* *Web Pick of the Week,* and *Awesome Science!*
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Kit Use Through a KSN Teacher's Eyes: Weather (STC)

Susan Maxwell teaches second grade at Ardmore Avenue School in the William Penn School District. For the past two years, Susan has been working with STC's Weather kit.

In Weather, students use tools and techniques to evaluate weather and determine how it affects their lives. Applying their new knowledge and skills, students make weather predictions and compare them to an actual weather forecast.

Along with simply enjoying meteorology, Susan had a unit on weather in her "ancient" science book, and liked how weather affects her students' everyday lives (Will they have to wear coats when they go outside? Will they have indoor recess?), so she chose to work with STC's Weather kit.

Susan found Weather to be very simple to use: the preparation and use were "not complicated at all," and "the Teacher's Guide was very clear." Susan was even able to extend the theme into other subject areas, explaining, "I made use of some of the extensions to other curriculum, especially the Language Arts, as our district has a big push on writing across the curriculum. I didn't use all of the student pages, but chose the ones that I felt matched each class best." Zeroing in on what's essential, Susan comments, "I did enjoy teaching the unit, but more importantly, the kids enjoyed learning about it."

The kit was great for really bringing important concepts to life. Susan says, "I liked the way the temperature was taught. I felt that the kids really got a good grasp on reading a thermometer and the experiment with dark and light colors really made an impact on some of my students." Expanding on the light and dark experiment, Susan explains, "The one activity that is done by putting thermometers in black, or white `bags' and letting them sit in the sun and then comparing the differences in temperature was a great hit. As we were waiting the 10 minutes for the activity to `work,' I looked around at what the kids were wearing and asked them to describe how their shoulders felt—warm or cool?—depending on what they were wearing. This helped bring the concept home."

Susan did encounter some problems in getting the natural world to cooperate. She says, "The only difficulty I encountered was when we were supposed to go outside and observe clouds and we were in the middle of the drought and there were no clouds to be found!" Additionally, Susan thinks that in the future, she'd add "more information about the water cycle and try to bring that into more lessons about puddles, clouds and wind, and evaporation."

Susan happily reports: "Both years the classes really enjoyed the activities we did with the kits. I have overheard various kids say, `I really like science, I wish we could do more of it.' Our day allows only about 25-30 minutes of science or social studies." She appreciated that "the kit allowed hands on work rather than just reading the information out of a book. We did do some reading to supplement or explain some of the vocabulary, but the activities are what helped the material `stick' in the kids' heads."

Susan says that she'd definitely use Weather again, and thinks that it would be best suited for "teachers for the spring of first grade or the fall of second grade," commenting, "That seems to be the developmental level that most of the activities are geared for. The beginning of first grade might be a little difficult unless you have a particularly bright class."

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Web Pick of the Week
Slates, Slide Rules, and Software: Teaching Math in America
http://www.americanhistory.si.edu

Even if you don't teach math, you might be interesting in this new offering from the Smithsonian Institution. A new exhibit at the National Museum of American History follows the history of teaching math in America.

Museum curator Peggy Kidwell built the exhibit around artifacts in the museum's collection, saying, "I wanted to try and show how American dreams about what our children will become are reflected in our math teaching."

The text of the site explains, "Throughout American history, teachers and parents have used objects—from colonial- era slates to modern electronic calculators—to help students master abstract mathematical concepts. These math teaching tools reflect society's hopes and dreams."

For more information about the exhibit, check out the Smithsonian's Web site at the address above.

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Awesome Science!
Microbes Survive 50 Kilometers Inside the Earth
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20020124204427data_trunc_s ys.shtml

This article details recent findings that may be of particular interest to teachers using the Microworlds kit, as well as other organisms-based kits.

You've probably heard of the creatures referred to as extremeophiles that can survive and even thrive in some of the harshest conditions. Scientists had previously believed that most other organisms could not live in such difficult conditions, but a new study indicates otherwise: "...even common bacteria are viable under high-pressure conditions equivalent to about 50 kilometers beneath the Earth's crust or 160 kilometers in a hypothetical sea. This finding may expand the habitable zone for life within the solar system and it opens new doors for looking for life much deeper inside planetary bodies than previously considered."

Find out more about the exciting possibility of life in previously unconsidered locales by clicking on the link above.

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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