Secondary Science Newsletter
October 5
Contest open for teachers and students to win classroom makeover
The Compass Learning Classroom Refresh Contest gives teachers and students the opportunity to win a classroom makeover worth up to $70,000. Prize packages include cutting-edge personalized learning software, hardware, and professional development.
Here's how it works:
- Encourage your teachers to work with their students to create a music video expressing how technology will enhance the learning experience.
- Submit videos between September 19 and October 24.
- Spread the word to your school and local community to vote for each video for a chance to win!
Winners will be selected based on a mix of public votes and a judging panel. View full contest guidelines, including the prize package details per grade category, at www.ClassroomRefreshContest.com.
Native American STEM competition and teacher conference, Nov. 24
In collaboration with the Oklahoma EPSCoR group, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, The University of Tulsa is hosting the First Annual Native American STEM competition and Teacher conference on Nov. 24.
These events are free to attend, and prizes will be awarded to the top teams in each division. To promote science education in Oklahoma classrooms and among Native American high school students, the majority of each team must be self-identified Native American. To promote science to both genders, there are three divisions: co-ed, all-boys and an all-girls division.
While students compete in the STEM challenges on campus, teachers will participate in a STEM conference.
A flyer with more details is linked below.
Register here: www.orgs.utulsa.edu/nasc.
Edmodo
Cool Tech Tool of the Week: Strip Designer
Strip Designer is fabulous app that encourages children to create their own personalised comics. Kids can choose from a range of page styles and layouts, add photos and drawings and let their imaginations run wild! They can even add stickers, speech bubbles, text effects and funny captions. We believe that Strip Designer encourages children to improve their story telling skills while having a great time!
Learning Outcome
This app encourages children to improve their story telling skills by creating, editing and publishing their own comics. It encourages users to be creative as it offers numerous tools that allow for text, photos, drawings and accessories to be added and manipulated.
This app suits children who like open ended tasks because it offers unlimited possibilities and endless options. It also suits creative children as there are many artistic options available.
Usability
There is a help section within this app that allows kids to view pages that explain the numerous features this app has to offer. This option contains quite a lot of text that needs to be read by the user. There are also links to Youtube videos (requires an internet connection) that serve as more advanced tutorials. Alternatively children can spend some time exploring the app themselves to discover its various features. Some younger children may need some guidance initially.
More info
This app enables children to:
- Improve their language and writing skills and express their creativity by creating their own comics. They can add photos, drawings, write their own text, add stickers (e.g. ‘boom’, ‘splash’ ‘beep’, moustaches), a range of speech bubbles and even customise the background.
- Publish their comics by printing them, exporting them as PDF documents, saving them in their photo albums and sharing them via various social networks and email.
Fun factor
Your children will love this app as the quality of comics they can create is amazing and they can personalize them by adding their own photos. They will enjoy exploring the endless features that this app has to offer and will love adding moustaches to their characters and creating a BANG! Great fun!
Instructional Strategy of the Week: Exit Tickets
Click here for more instructional strategies.
Need Resources?
And please send me awesome lessons or ideas so that I can share those across the district.
Safety Reminder
Please review the following documents before beginning any activity that may pose a risk to students (directions for locating these resources are in parentheses).
- Science Class Safety Information Sheet (R:\Safety Information\Internal Policies)
- Secondary Science Safety Notebook (R:\03 High School Resources\Science\Secondary Science Safety)
- Review all documents in R:\03 High School Resources\Science\Secondary Science Safety
If you have any questions at all regarding safety in the science classroom, please contact me.
Important Dates
- Pets in the Classroom Grants (PK-8th)- now open
- Fund for Teachers Travel Grants- opens October 1
- Oklahoma Science Teachers Association conference- November 1
- PASCO STEM Educator Award nominations (provides funding to travel to NSTA conferences)- November 30
- AP Grants- due December 15
- High school benchmark dates: October 9, December 5, March 11, May 6 (except biology)
- Middle school benchmark dates: October 9, December 19, March 11, May 13 (except 8th grade)