Life Sciences

The study of genetics and heredity has been a part of science curriculum for quite a while now. Biology teachers can use the experiments and discoveries of Gregor Mendel along with Darwin’s explanation of natural selection to teach students the inner workings of genetics and heredity. Although I find the subject fascinating, students may tire of doing endless homozygous and heterozygous crosses on worksheets. Some of these worksheets and “boring” lessons can be replaced by some of the unique activities featured in Joann’s Picks and on our Facebook and Twitter pages this week.

One of the favorite pastimes of my parents and in-laws is to scrutinize my children and remark how each child resembles their respective sides of the family. My parents feel strongly that their grandchildren take after “our side” of the family in looks and temperament, while my in-laws feel equally firm that the children are much more like my husband and “their side”. I’m sure this same scenario is played out ad naseum in families worldwide; one wonders what happens in families with less-than attractive children.

It’s been nearly 14 years since the publication of the first Harry Potter book. The first generation of Potter fans has now likely completed college, having grown up alongside the books’ protagonists that they’ve grown to love. Although sales of the Harry Potter series have slowed since the publication of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in 2007, a new crop of readers continue to discover the series each year. According to Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter series, there are currently 143 million copies of Potter books in print in the U.S., and 400 million copies worldwide.

Autumn is a time of great change and transformation in nature. As a child, I remember the awe I felt watching leaves fall and crunching across them as I walked on the sidewalk. As an adult, I am still in awe of the sights and smells of the season (and I STILL want to jump in the huge pile of leaves, even if it means I’ll have to rake them up again). This week, Joann and I collected resources that tap into this childhood fascination of the changes occurring in nature to teach lessons in many different subject areas.

A few weeks ago, my third grader stopped in her tracks, flung her arms far apart, and breathed deeply. Nonplussed, I stopped and asked her what she was doing.

“Remembering the way summer smells,” she said.

I sniffed the air tentatively, but all I could really smell was car exhaust. We were in the middle of a plaza parking lot, after all.

I had forgotten this little scenario until this morning, when we awakened to temperatures in the 40s. As we waited for the school bus, my daughter raised her chin into the wind and announced that it now smelled like fall. “But I still remember how summer smells,” she said.

A confession: I’m sort of a weather junkie.

Much to the annoyance of my children, I can happily watch The Weather Channel for hours on end.

“It’s the same thing over and over,” says my son. “It’s boring.”

“They’re not even showing our weather!” my daughter splutters. I tell her that even though we’re not presently in Barcelona, I still care about their weather.

I’m not exactly sure why I like watching weather-related events so much, but I do. Maybe it’s a reminder that, even in the 21st century where we’ve bent so many aspects of the natural world to our collective human will, the forces of nature remain a power that can’t always be controlled despite our best efforts. It truly is bigger than us.

The resources Joann featured this week are fun examples of how to include interactive maps in your classroom. If you haven’t checked them out yet, you should. Really…who hasn’t wondered where they would end up if they tunneled through the earth? All three resources would be great for a geography classroom, and an interactive piracy map could tie in well in a history class or even an English class if you are reading about pirates.

I read a tweet the other day that really got me thinking about what we do as teachers and how we make learning relevant to students’ lives. It was short and to the point. “Gulf Oil Spill…a teachable moment.” It can be a teachable moment, so how are we going to make the most of it? There are important things like this happening in our world every day that shape and mold our students. With a little creativity, we can use these events to make learning more relevant and authentic. There is just something special when we can anchor our teaching to things happening around us right now.

Offshore oil drilling has long been a controversial topic, and the debate ratcheted up a notch when a BP offshore drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico last month. At this writing, BP has installed a tube to siphon some of the 210,000 gallons of crude oil that had been spewing into the Gulf each day.