May/June PBL Platte

PBL Bootcamp

Friday!
The end of PBL Bootcamp, the spring edition. It is MUCH funnier to watch OTHER PEOPLE pulling their hair out & litterally holding their heads together to keep their minds from being blown.
I’ve seen dozens of good ideas & met loads of good people who are working hard for their kids.
It’s always nice to know others are working towards a similar goal.
I learned we will have our Bio/English class shared out to Bonesteele next year. I wonder if/when they will in life me in planning that.
Looking forward to working with/for PAST in July out west on the reservation and inPlaye near the end of August!

8 March, 2012 19:44

STEM
Dean Kamen, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg… Who’s next?

Vegetation Plot Samples

Today we went out to an unmaintained & natural area of city property to count the grass. Literally, we counted the grass. The kids were practicing plot sampling. This is a process, by which, scientists can estimate the number of blades of grass in a field, or the number of trees in a forest. By actually counting several representative sample plots of one square meter in size, we can extrapolate that data and come up with a mathematically realistic estimate of the numbers of each different kind of grass in our unmaintained area.

Laura Haatvedt (S.D. Dept. of Education Information Specialist) was out to interview Mary & me this morning for the Zebra. We drug her out of the classroom and she took some pictures and asked some questions. It was fortunate she had an extra pair of shoes in her car. The nice looking heels she was wearing were not going to look nice after an hour out in the dirt!

We collected one of every plant in each plot and will use dichotomous keys to identify all the different grasses, small trees, shrubs, and bushes over the next class periods.

Homecoming week. If you are a teacher you know what I mean. Most of the kids are very focused during homecoming week. Unfortunately, very few are focused on learning in the classroom! LOL!

C’est la vie!

Week 5 – Already?!

How did we get into week #5 already? Time flies…

This week finds our intrepid Sophomores presenting information about a Biome. They were required to put together an informative PowerPoint about a Biome. They drew their Biome out of a bucket, then were given 50 minutes of class time to research. Monday was presentation day. We didn’t finish all of the presentations because “somebody” decided to do a great job and take up over nine minutes, and three others used more than six minutes. A vast majority of the presentations met or exceeded expectations! Good job class!

I acquired a class pet Saturday while attending the Wagner Speedway end of the year potluck. Some of the kids were fishing in Wagner lake and brought up a crayfish. He (or she) now resides in my science fish tank. I told the kids they could name it, right after they tell me how to determine the sex of a crayfish. They haven’t named it yet… waiting…

2 Liter bottles & some really funky smells!

Week 3 is in the books… and our students aren’t! A lot has happened since my last post.

The students created an experiment based on the problem of “How to grow pea plants inside our school”. We planted on Friday, 2 September. Some brought clay pots, some brought plastic bottles, one Styrofoam, cup, and one plastic sandwich bag. They also brought their own medium to plant the pea in. While most opted for dirt, one planted in dog food, one in a dirt/cat food mix, and one planted in flour.

This week (Wednesday, 7 September) we created some Pop Bottle terrariums & ecosystems. We invited the 7th grade to join us in this endeavor. Our reasoning was to encourage inter-age communication and teach that everyone can be a valuable part of a team. Since 7th grade Life Science and Sophomore Biology standards both include biomes, plants, and the environment we decided to let the Sophomores help the 7th graders with their first project.

We started the day by making a trip to Lake Alcazar. The students were tasked with collecting a water plant they could put into a two liter pop bottle. We followed the plans we found at www.bottlebiology.org/. We put one 7th grader and one Sophomore into a group, gave them the directions, and tried not to lead them through it.

We all know that knowledge gained by figuring something out for yourself is made permanent much easier and much more often than information given out by a teacher. My current favorite example: ask anyone who has recently completed any type of home renovation if they learned anything. The most common response I get is, “LOTS!” So we tried to let them “DO” and if their plants don’t make it, it will not end the world, and they will have some knowledge to show for their efforts.

With water plants and lake water in the bottom, the groups planted terrestrial plants in the top. Some planted wheat, zinnias, wild flower mix, peas, and some planted radishes. We came back together today (Friday, 8 September) to finish the bottles, clean-up, and wrap-up the project.

In the construction process we found myriad tiny water bugs! We scooped some of them into a petri dish and put them under the 40 power binocular microscope (provided by Sanford Research – Thanks!). We saw HUNDREDS of little critters scooting around in the water. Some of the students were mesmerized, some were a little freaked out!

We invited all of Mrs. King’s classes (the Jr. High classes) and the 3rd graders, and 1st graders because their teachers are involved in PBL projects, and the kindergarteners because their teacher (Mrs. Preheim) is such an outdoor person, she would have been crushed if we had left her out! All of the classes enjoyed looking at the little water bugs and getting out of their regular classrooms and spending a little time in the high school, with the big kids!

With the combination of lake water, the black goo from the bottom of the lake, moldy cat food, and putrefying flour, my room has begun to smell pretty funky! Thank God for exhaust fans!

An Expedition to Wold’s World

On Monday our Sophomores designed their own Lab. They were tasked with designing an experiment to determine the best method of growing peas inside the school. On Friday they will actually follow the lab procedures they came up with and fill out their Lab Journal at the same time. We will follow through, making observations and collecting data, until we can come to a conclusion about their methodologies. This should be a lot of fun!
On Wednesday Annalies Corbin, PhD, Founder and Executive Director of the PAST Foundation of Columbus, Ohio came to visit. With her was Director of Operations, Sheli O. Smith, PhD. If having two visiting PhD’s wasn’t enough to get the Sophomores out of their comfort zone, we took them on a field trip to see the local taxidermist.

Slim & Larry @ A Tail for Tales Taxidermy

We asked Larry to inform the kids about his process, the steps needed to be a successful taxidermist. The guy our kids know as Larry is more formally known as Larry Wold, owner of A Tail for Tales Taxidermy and Master Taxidermist (with Master Taxidermist status in four categories: Upland Game Birds, Waterfowl, Large Mammal Shoulder Mounts and Fish). He has won Best Overall Taxidermist 2 times in the state of South Dakota. He has also won a First Place at the National level with Upland Game Birds.
We couldn’t have asked for a better presentation! Larry covered everything: PR, Finances, Time Management, Receiving Animals, Processing hides/Pelts, shipping the hides to other processors, Foam Mannequins, Sewing the hides on, Posing, Sculpting with clay, Gluing, Air Brushing, and Cosmetology. Yes he uses hair spray, gel, and blow driers! A Vidal Sassoon blow drier to be precise!
Drs. Corbin & Smith were both impressed with his shop, his work, and his presentation. They were also a great help during our wrap-up discussion during 6th period English class. The Sophomores found out that they really did learn several things about science during their little expedition into Wold’s World!
Next up, planting peas! Following that will be Bottle Biology in conjunction with the 7th grade. Cross curricular, inter-grade cooperative learning is a little outside my comfort zone, but… here goes!