Class dynamics and culture are really time consuming AND really worth every minute!
Yesterday, I wrote a piece about assuming students have collaboration skills and building class culture. These vital learning pieces were greatly deemphasized and cut (even ridiculed as a waste of time) during the last 15 years or so of school "reform." I meant to...
Never assume your students know how to work together on a project
I remember back in the day (or do people still do these?) when teachers in 4th or 5th grade tended to assign "the state" or "the country" report. Way too often the assumption was made that the students pretty much knew how to do these. The teacher would pass out the...
Do People Really Think Earth Might Be Flat?
Had to post this. As someone who delivers professional development in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) this study's findings don't surprise me (link to the study YouGov site). Science and social studies and a raft of other subjects important to...
A year ago today everyone was talking about and viewing the eclipse
A year ago today I was very fortunate to be part of a NASA sponsored team launching high altitude balloons in Idaho to record data about the total eclipse. Meantime back in northern Nevada where I work, thousands of students and members of the general public were...
Ocean Gyres and Plastic Pollution Solutions
I'm currently involved in designing a 5th grade inquiry experience aligned to NGSS - I'm actually part of a team of 3. I volunteered (or was volunteered, not sure) to design a Plastic Gyre that 5th grade students will then design a system to collect the plastic from....
RECON Pluto Occultation Campaign Looks At Pluto’s atmosphere
UPDATE 8/15: Cloud cover and high winds made our participation impossible. However, some of the 50+ teams in the campaign were successful. This Tuesday night we have our next "community science" campaign to observe objects in the Kuiper Belt. This time the atmosphere...
Our Annual High Altitude Balloon Project Is Coming Together
NOTE: If you'd like to be part of this project you and your students can send us their "High Hopes" for their school, community and the world and we will launch them up high to 100,000 feet where they will be released to slowly drift down to the ground and become one...
Breadware With Middle Schoolers
Late last school year I met up with the folks at Breadware to determine if their Internet of Things (IoT) Development Kits could be a nice fit in local high schools. They were a local "start-up" company and they were willing to loan their kits to local teachers and...
Bee-Bot Cadre 1st Meet-Up
Last spring I was able to purchase, thanks to some unspent funding from a grant, 3 Bee-Bot "Hives" - they are about $600 each - each "hive" includes 6 Bee-Bots, a charging plate and a yellow backpack for transporting them. With time short before the school year ran...
High Hopes Launch 11/28/2017
We finally managed to launch a balloon this fall. It's been in the works for well over a month, maybe two. Weather and scheduling finally came together and we launched on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, from Virginia City High School's football field (in Nevada). Virginia...