Investigating the Living World- Ask a Scientist

Exploring the Ask a Scientist website was somewhat of an adventure for me. I found it to be a very interesting and resourceful website that I think my students will definitely find fascinating. After reading through several of the questions, I found that it ranged from everyday “I wonders and what ifs”, to deeper scientific, content specific questions. To be honest, the more content specific, deeper questions intimidated me. I thought I had good background knowledge in terms of cells and their functions because I have a nursing background before teaching. After browsing through the Ask a Scientist website as well as reading through the course readings for last week, I am feeling as though I need a major brush up on cells and their functions.

The causal question I have chosen relates to the endangered species I chose to work with in my course project. I do not know a great deal about bats, and thought this would be a great opportunity to learn more about the structural makeup of the Indiana bat from a scientist. I only know the basics about the Indiana bat: “the Indiana bat is quite small, weighing only one-quarter of an ounce (about the weight of three pennies). In flight, it has a wingspan of 9 to 11 inches. The fur is dark-brown to black” (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2011).

Question: How are the cell structures of bats, more specifically Indiana bats, different from the cell structures of humans and plants, in both makeup and function?

Sadly enough, I have not yet received a response to my Ask a Scientist question. Has anyone else received an answer?

Investigating the Living World (SCIE - 6662S - 1) WebTools Test Drive

As I stated in my discussion for this week, technology is the driving force behind almost everything we do today in the 21st century. Our students are on technology overload due to our culture; yet technology seems to be the main staple in really catching their academic attention and actively engaging them in learning. I love finding new technology resources to use in the classroom that help to “dazzle” the students. After test driving several of the Web Tools, I found two that really seemed to catch my attention and fit my needs as a 6^th science and social studies teacher.  

The first Web Tool I “test drove” was SlideShare. SlideShare is a program that allows you to take already created PowerPoint Presentations and place them “online, tag them, email them, and get html code for embedding them to your own blog, wiki or website”(WebTools4U2Use,2011).  One of the components I found to be really great is that you can also add audio, notes, and YouTube videos to your PowerPoint presentations in SlideShare. This would be a beyond wonderful resource for me in both my science and social studies classes. I feel that this web tool can really take PowerPoints to the “next level”.  In addition, I can use this program to upload my PowerPoints to my class website so that students and parents can view them/study them at home and we can work on projects in the computer lab at school via this program as well.  You can use SlideShare’s basic version for free to upload and share your PowerPoints, however, if you want to access special features you have to “go Pro” and pay a monthly fee. During the test drive I found the free version to be enough.  To learn how to use SlideShare there is a tutorial called Slide101 that will help in learning the ins and outs of the program. I am excited to use this tool!

My second WebTool I “test drove” was Museum Box. I thought this resource was really cool especially for my social studies classes. Museum Box is a web tool that allows you to “build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box” (Museum Box, 2011). In addition, you can “you can display anything from a text file to a movie…You can add text, images, video and sound to the side of the cubes.” (Museum Box, 2011). Museum Box has a link for teachers that provide specific tools, instructions, and resources for teachers; you can also register your school. This web tool is a free resource and has lots of files of pictures, videos, sounds, and links available for use. I have already created a Museum Box for my unit on Egypt in my social studies classes! I am very excited about this resource and am also going to train my students how to use it for social studies projects on computer lab days.

Resources

http://museumbox.e2bn.org/

http://www.slideshare.net/