BTW Distance Learning: Week 4
Online Timelines, Writing Prompts & a Book Study
What Students Are Saying About Living Through a Pandemic
CURRENT EVENTS CONVERSATION
What Students Are Saying About Living Through a Pandemic
Teenage comments in response to our recent writing prompts, and an invitation to join the ongoing conversation.
The rapidly-developing coronavirus crisis is dominating global headlines and altering life as we know it. Many schools worldwide have closed. In the United States alone, 55 million students are rapidly adjusting to learning and socializing remotely, spending more time with family, and sacrificing comfort and convenience for the greater good.
Check out answers to the New York Time's Writing prompt here or allow your students to answer the prompts themselves.
Zoo Atlanta @ Home
Students can check out Zoo Atlanta’s YouTube Channel! Within the channel, they can search for careers in zoology, Keeper Talks, research and much more! One of the ways students can use this tool is to research endangered animals and create a campaign to help protect them!
Beyond Zoo Atlanta, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), their partner accrediting organization, has created an online tool to assist in finding virtual resources and tools from zoos and aquariums across the country. Here you will find a calendar of events that you or your students can log onto.
Lastly, Zoo Atlanta has been working to create new content, from videos to activities, that you can use to aid in student learning. You can access this content on our new At Home webpage. This content is constantly being refreshed, so keep checking in as we add new content each week! What if you need something that is not there? Feel free to reach out to us directly, via email at eduation@zooatlanta.org, and let us know … we just might be able to help you out!
JLG Digital Offers Unlimited Access to Books
JLG has generously opened up their free digital platform for books. Raven Boys will be the first selection we'll all read together. Discussion will be held on April 30 at 10AM on Google Meet.
JLG digital shelf link: https://jlg.ipublishcentral.com/bookshelf
Website Ideas!
Best Websites for Learning
Biointeractive provides multimedia science resources for secondary and college educators as well as students. Materials include short films, lectures, virtual labs, tutorials, apps, click-and-learns, and teacher guides. This easy-to-use site is filled with an abundance of materials for Chemistry, Ecology, Organisms, Biology, Genetics, Scientific Process, Evolution, AP Biology, and more. As teachers and students continue to seek textbook enrichments, Biointeractive becomes the perfect go-to website.
Covering the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies, Science Friday provides free STEM activities, lessons, and resources for all learners, making science fun for everyone! Science Friday will spark students’ curiosity at a visceral level, on topics from Frankenstein to the La Brea Tar Pits, and from shrinking polar bears to an online rock collection (#neatrocks). There is so much to explore in this child’s world! Science Friday connects digital STEM resources to hands on learning. Some activities in Spanish.
Time.Graphics’s step-by-step guide leads students to easily incorporate text, video, and graphics to create an online timeline. Registering and creating public timelines is free, and private timelines can be created with a paid subscription. Completed timelines can be shared through social media or downloaded, and students can explore a wealth of timelines in the site’s library on global statistics or search for shared timelines on virtually any topic.
Free Sites for Learning During Quarantine
1. edX
Even though your classes and extracurricular activities have been canceled, it doesn’t mean you should stop learning. EdX is an online platform that offers more than 2,500 courses online for free. Taking an online course is a great way to boost your resume and prove to colleges you can handle challenging material. Take this time to learn a new skill or explore a possible major from institutions like MIT, Harvard, University of California-Berkeley and more.
2. Duolingo
The cognitive benefits of learning another language are undeniable. Studies have shown that being bilingual can benefit memory, problem-solving abilities and even intelligence. Duolingo is a free app that high school students should take advantage of now. Some schools offer limited foreign language options, but through Duolingo, students can learn Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, Russian and many more. If you want, you can even learn fictional languages like Klingon and High Valyrian.
3. Skillshare
Skillshare has a plethora of courses available for free. For example, if you have an idea for starting your own Etsy store, you can take the “Building an Etsy Shop that Sells” course. Or, you can take a Productivity Masterclass to learn how to study more efficiently when in high school and college.
4. Codecademy
While you might not be thinking about the job market just yet, coding is one of the most valuable skills that you can pick up. Codecademy is offering Pro scholarships to students affected by school closures. On the free site, you can choose what to learn, including building websites to analyze data. You’ll learn by doing and can start writing code within a few minutes of joining the site.