TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Apr 14, 2019
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
Aquation - Smithsonian Science Education Center
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
Include this activity with any unit on the environment, water cycles, or weather. Extend this activity further to learn more about water conservation in your community. Ask students to take pictures around the school or at home showing the inefficient use of water. Use PhotoCollage, reviewed here, and have students create a collage of their images to use as a starting point for research. Ask students to enhance their learning and upload their collage to a blog and write analyzing and sharing ideas for water conversation based on their collage. Use a blog tool such as edublog, reviewed here. Use Symbaloo Learning Paths, reviewed here, to create a learning path for your students for your entire unit. Add videos, quizzes, embed this game and add all the information for students to follow. Symbaloo Learning Paths also includes options for differentiation for different interests or ability levels of your students. Ask older students to enhance their learning and create their own Learning Path to demonstrate and share learning throughout the unit.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Earth Science Resources - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
This collection includes resources for all grades. Each review includes several classroom use ideas. These are excellent tools to use to study for the big test! Save (or bookmark) this list for students to use to review. Explore the activities suggested.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Tread Lightly! - Tread Lightly! Inc
Grades
5 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Take advantage of the many free materials for use in classroom lessons about the environment. Use the magnifying glass and search bar to find the Quick Tips Home Page. Then, have students explore the Quick Tips portion of the site and create their own environmental Quick Tips online posters individually or together as a class. For the novice technology user try these two tools to enhance technology use in your classroom: PicLits, reviewed here, or Web Poster Wizard, reviewed here. For the more experienced transform the use of technology in your class with Sway, reviewed here, or give students a choice of projects to complete with Genial.ly, reviewed here. Both Sway and Genial.ly will allow your students to create multimedia projects. Consider becoming a Tread Lightly! member as a class or school and apply for a recreation stewardship grant to organize a clean-up day in your community.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Plum Landing - WGBH Educational Foundation
Grades
1 to 3In the Classroom
Capture student interest in environmental science, zoology, conservation, and ecology with Plum and her human friends! Use this site in science as a way to introduce the study of the Earth, biomes, or food chains. Share the videos on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Add to computers for center time. Use Plum's adventures to inspire further adventures involving the students. Use videos as a multimedia resource to supplement the science textbook. Use the adventures to inspire either narrative or expository writing. During Earth Day, students can explore your school community. Explore other science topics and modify student learning by challenging them to create comics using a tool such as Make Beliefs Comix, reviewed here, or a digital storytelling project with their own images, observations, and stories using Presentious, reviewed here. Presentious allows narrating and adding text to a picture. ENL/ESL and learning support students will find this site useful with reading support, video, and demonstrations. Have students research topics mentioned in the videos for deeper understanding. If you are beginning the process of integrating technology, replace pen and paper by having students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Seesaw, reviewed here. Share research and stories with other classes in your school, students' families, and on your class website or wiki.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Change Gamer - Mike Farley
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use these interactives to review concepts learned during a unit of study. Consider using the interactives at the start of a unit to teach concepts as the material is being learned. Be sure to download the student activity document. Use the pre-questions to identify misconceptions and activate prior knowledge. Directions in the document alert you to the basics of using the interactive. Provide the post-questions to the students as they play the interactive to be aware of what they will be learning. Replace paper and pen and use a blogging tool such as Telegra.ph, reviewed here. This blog creator requires no registration; be sure to have students save the URL to share with you. Students can answer the questions individually, as groups, or as a class to review the concepts learned during the interactive and connect it to class. As a class, discuss how the scenario presented in the interactive is or is not like actual environmental issues of today. Enhance learning and get the shyest of students involved in the discussion by using a backchannel chat such as YoTeach!, reviewed here. Change Gamer would also be an excellent activity for gifted students or for those who are ahead in their work in a differentiated classroom.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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CurriConnects Booklist: Living Green - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
This is a great match during units on the environment, current events, or world issues. As students select and read from this list, they will have many opportunities to interact and find meaning from informational texts. This list is ideal during April for Earth Day or as you study the environment--or even geography and human impact on our planet.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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National Environmental Education Week - National Environmental Education Foundation
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Use this resource to plan great activities, lessons, and events for students leading up to Earth Day. For example, use the search function locateed under the menu symbol in the upper left corner and search Greening, STEM, video, for videos and information about water shortages, drought, climate change, and resources. Use the articles and reports to pique student interest, use short videos in the classroom, and find great websites and programs linked from the page. Use these resources not only for a greater understanding of issues but to create awareness campaigns for change in the home, school, or community. Exchange pen and paper and enhance learning by asking students to keep a digital journal sharing their learning and understanding using Telegra.ph, reviewed here. With Telegra.ph you just click on an icon to upload images from your computer, add a YouTube or Vimeo, or Twitter links. This blog creator requires no registration. If you are teaching younger students and looking for an easy way to integrate technology and check for understanding, replace pencil and paper and challenge your students to create a blog using Seesaw, reviewed here. Partner with local groups (conservation or not) to create action plans and events, and provide opportunities for change in the community. Enhance and transform student learning by challenging them to create interactive brochures, magazines, or posters of information learned using Lucidpress, reviewed here, or Genially, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Earth Day - EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
Grades
4 to 7In the Classroom
Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Read the history of Earth Day together. Have cooperative learning groups explore different ways to "take action" and then challege them to enhance their learning and create a multimedia presentation to share with the class. Try using Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, reviewed here, or Sway, reviewed here. Why not ask students to extend their learning using one of these video tools (click tool name to see review): MoocNote, Animatron, Powtoon, or Kizoa. Then, have students share it with the class using a site such as TeacherTube, explained here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Biomes of the World - TeachersFirst
Grades
4 to 8In the Classroom
Have students work in cooperative learning groups to explore this site. Transform technology use and student learning by challenging students to create multimedia presentations about the biomes. Use Timeline JS, reviewed here; Timeline JS offers the option to upload and add photos, videos, audio, Tweets, and Google Maps making it interactive, or Typito, reviewed here; a video creation tool where you add images and video, add text, choose templates and layouts, and add music to personalize your work, or Genial.ly, reviewed here, which allows you to insert maps, surveys, video, audio and more. With Genial.ly students will have a choice of presentation styles (posters, infographics, etc.). Last, you could use Thinglink, reviewed here, where technology use will range from augmentation (narration of an image) to redefinition (adding media links, explanation, narration). Other options might include creating a wiki or blog.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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