The Twelve Teacher Days of Christmas Begins December 1

Sign up for FREE Teaching Materials

The Twelve Teacher Days of Christmas begins on December 1.

What is this you may ask?  Well, Charity Preston of the Organized Classroom Blog has put together a very exciting promotion for teachers.  Each day during the first 12 days of December, you will receive a free teaching product in your email.  These are products that are normally for purchase at TeachersPayTeachers.com.  If you sign up to receive Charity's newsletter, you will be receiving these "normally for purchase" products for free.

Each day a different teacher will be featured.

There will be items from teacher sellers at all grade levels, so make sure to stop by their TpT stores to see 

what they have!

These are the featured teachers in the order they will be featured.  As you can see, I (Science Stuff) am being featured on Day 11.  On this day you will receive in your email, one of my products that is a "for sale" product on TpT.  On Day 11, you will receive this item for FREE!!

• From the Pond

• Heidi Raki

• Wise Guys

• Linda Nelson

• Scipi

• Shelley Gray

• Secondary Solutions

• MiddleSchoolTeacher

• Oddball Science

• Addie Williams

• Science Stuff

• Charity Preston

If you have not already signed up to receive Charity Preston's newsletter, please scroll down to the post below.  All of the details are there.

See you in the newsletter on Day 11!

Happy Teaching!

The Twelve Teacher Days of Christmas!

FREE Teaching Materials!!

Charity Preston of the Organized Classroom Blog has outdone herself this time.  Beginning on December 1, you can have a free teaching product delivered to your email.  These products that you will receive for free are normally sold on TeachersPayTeachers.com.  You can receive them for free only by signing up for Charity's newsletter.  

Each day of the twelve days, a different teacher.author will be featured.  I am very excited to one of the 12 featured authors.

Please read the details below and sign up to receive the newsletter.  I would love for all of you to receive one of my for sale products for FREE!

Here are the details from Charity's site:

Who:  Everyone who is signed up for my newsletter (see right box on sidebar to sign up for it FREE).  PS - home email addresses work much better for ensuring delivery than school email addresses do - many times the school filter will pull the email before it even gets to you!

What:  The 12 Teacher Days of Christmas FREE files will be delivered to your email inbox as a thank you for being the amazing teachers you are!

Where:  My newsletter subscriber list

When:  December 1st-12th

Why:  Some friends at Teachers Pay Teachers wanted to pull together a fun event to celebrate the holiday season, and no holiday event is complete unless you have gifts!

How:  Just make sure you are signed up for The OC Blog newsletter and make sure you check your inbox each day Dec 1-12!  If you don't see it, double check your spam filter as well - sometimes the cyber gremlins take them and hide them in there.

People can sign up for Charity's newsletter in 2 different places:  Either on any page of her website in the right sidebar (http://www.theOrganizedClassroomBlog.com) or from her welcome page on her Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/TheOrganizedClassroomBlog?sk=app_200019613358161).

The Sale Continues

Sale Continues Through Nov 29

Just wanted to let you know that even though Cyber-Monday is over, the sale going on in my store on TeachersPayTeachers.com is still going strong.  All items are 20% off through the end of November 29.

Science Stuff Store

Thanks for your support during this school year.

Happy Teaching!

Cyber Monday Sale on TeachersPayTeachers.com

A sale this big happens only twice a year!

I am so excited to announce a BIG, HUGE sale on TeachersPayTeachers.com.  The owner of the TpT site, Paul Edelman, has issued a discount code that can be used on all purchases made on Monday, November 28.  In addition to this discount code, many of the teacher/authors are putting their items on sale.

I appreciate all the support I have received form all of you this year.  To say "THANKS", I have placed my entire store, Science Stuff, on sale for Monday and Tuesday, November 28 and 29.  Everything (digital downloads, books, CD's) will be on sale for 20% off.  If you use the discount code CMS28 at check out, you will receive an additional 10% off all purchases.

The discount code, CMS28, is good for Monday, November 28 only.  The last time there was a sale like this, the traffic to the TpT site was so enormous, the site became sluggish and hard to navigate.  For this reason, I am running my sale through Tuesday, the 29th.  If there are problems on Monday, Paul has promised to extend his discount code as well.

Happy Shopping!!

Happy Teaching!!

Here's a new FREEBIE for you!!

Click picture to download product.

 FREE Graphing and Data Analysis Worksheet 

By the time I teach the fungi to my biology classes, several months have passed since the beginning of the school year. At the start of each school year, I spend quite a bit of time teaching graphing and data analysis skills. I use this simple and FREE activity to kill two birds with one stone. This activity allows me the opportunity to review the basic science skills of graphing and data analysis while at the same time reinforcing concepts on the fungi.

Mycorrhizae are fungal hyphae that live in mutualistic relationships with the roots of plants. Mycorrhizae are essential in the role of increasing absorptive surface area of plant roots. Mycorrhizae enable plant roots to absorb water as well as phosphorus and other essential mineral ions.

In this activity, students are given information about plants that are grown with and without the assistance of mycorrhizae. Quantitative data is given. Students graph the data and answer 8 data analysis questions.

This is perfect for a short homework assignment or classwork. This can also be left in your sub folder to be used in your absence.


And best of all...it is absolutely FREE!!


Mycorrhizae: Graphing and Data Analysis Worksheet

Happy Teaching!!

(Coming soon... "The Fungi:  A Complete Unit Plan of 10 Products")

Fun with Janice VanCleave!!

Every once in a while, something fun and unexpected happens!

Imagine my surprise a few weeks ago to open my email and find an email from best selling author and former school teacher, Janice VanCleave.  Janice found some of my free items on TeachersPayTeachers.com and wrote to me to ask if she could feature some of them on her web site, JVC's Science Fair Projects.

I have been aware of Janice and her best selling books for years.  I have used so many of her ideas in my classroom over the years.  I have also had much fun "doing science" at home with my children as they were growing up.  Many of the FUN, FUN activities we did at home came from Janice's books.

Janice's site, JVC's Science Fair Projects, is simply delightful.  There is a plethora of information about all things science related.

I am honored and so excited that Janice has, indeed, featured my free products on her web site.  Please take some time and peruse Janice's site.  You won't be disappointed.

Easy Way to Measure the Rate of Respiration

What is the rate of respiration in these germinating seeds?

Many biology teachers tell me that they dread teaching photosynthesis and respiration to their students.  Since I love teaching these concepts, I always ask why they feel this way.  Responses include:  "My students think it is boring.  It is too abstract for the students to understand.  There is too much chemistry involved.  There aren't any good labs to do."

I would have to disagree with all of these statements.  Photosynthesis and respiration may be the two topics I love teaching the most!  What is more fundamental to the study of biology than photosynthesis and respiration?  I have several labs (that I love!) that I do with my students while teaching about respiration.  I have already written articles on two of these labs:  Gas Exchange in Respiration, and Energy in Foods.

This blog post is about a simple and effective method of measuring the rate of respiration in a living organism.  As you can see in the photo above, I used Sugar Snap Peas as my choice for a respiring organism.  The objective?  To determine how much oxygen is consumed during respiration by these peas over a given amount of time.

The experiment includes 2 experimental set-ups and 1 control set up.  The rate of respiration will be measured in germinating peas and in dry peas that are dormant.  The peas will be placed inside a device known as a respirometer.  To insure equal volume in each set-up, the volume of germinating peas is first determined by water displacement.  An equal number of dry peas will be used and the volume will be made equal by the addition of small glass beads.  The third respirometer will contain an equal volume of glass beads only.

The respirometers are assembled as seen in the photo to the left.  The essential components of the experiment include:
1.   Respirometers are assembled and placed in a large pan of water.
2.   As oxygen is consumed by the seeds, the water will be drawn into the pipets.  This can be measured with the calibrate pipet that has been inserted into the rubber stopper.
3.  Since carbon dioxide is also released during respiration, there will be no movement of water into the pipet unless this is removed as a factor affecting the experiment.  A small amount of absorbent cotton is placed in the bottom of the vial.  This cotton is saturated with KOH.  As carbon dioxide is released by the respiring peas, it reacts with KOH to form solid potassium carbonate.  This removes the carbon dioxide and allows only the oxygen to be measured.
4.   Measurements will be taken every 5 minutes for some length of time.  Since we have a long lab period, we were able to set up the experiment and then allow it to run for 30 minutes.

This lab has all the best components of a lab:  

• Easy set-up!
• Easy clean-up!
• No fancy equipment required!
• Works every time!
• Kids love it!

Happy Teaching!!

Let's Make a Mold Terrarium!

Yucky!

Ooey!

Gooey!

Kids Love It!

This was a new activity for me, and I have to say, my students really enjoyed it!  I wanted to do something different this year as I neared the point in my course where I teach the fungi.  So I decided to have my students build a mold terrarium.  I wasn't exactly sure how the idea would go over with my students, but I decided to give it a go anyway.  MY STUDENTS LOVED IT!  

No fancy materials are required.  You only need a glass jar, some water, and some left over foods.  In order to get some good pictures for this blog post, I used a large plastic tray that had a clear lid on it.  And I used quite a few foods as a test to see which would be good suggestions to the students for which foods they should choose for their terrarium.  

From start to finish, I would allow at least 12 days.  Nothing much happens at first, but when the molds start to grow....  WOWEE!...they really take off.


Enjoy these pictures!!

Day 1:  Set Up Day!  These are still good enough to eat!

Day 3:  The cucumber was the first to go!

Day 4:  The cheese is getting a bit "iffy".

Day 11:  Very nice, huh??

Day 11:  Wow!  What a hairy monster!  
And there are several different kinds of mold visible.

Believe it or not, the smell was not too bad.  The only time I really noticed the smell was when I removed the lid to take these cool pictures.  TIP:  Do not use any foods that have eggs, meat or fish!  YUK!

I also prepared (IMHO) a pretty good set of handouts to go along with this activity.  One of my students commented, "Why can't we ever do anything just for fun?"  The handouts included a procedure page, a pre-lab sheet where I asked the kids to make predictions about which food would mold first, etc, a data table for recording daily observations, and 2 pages of final observation and analysis questions.

I created two different versions of the activity, one for high school students and one for upper elementary/middle school students.

Click picture to view the elementary/middle school version
in my store on TeachersPayTeachers.com

Click picture to see the high school version
in my store on TeachersPayTeachers.com

Happy Teaching!

How Much Energy Do Different Foods Contain?

How much energy do these foods contain?

This lab is always a favorite of my students!

I have just finished teaching cellular respiration to my students.  As teachers, we spend so much time talking and teaching about the path of glucose through the reactions of respiration, that I worry that students will come away from a biology class thinking that only glucose can serve as a fuel for respiration.  It is important to help them realize that any organic compound (with modifications) can serve as a fuel for respiration.

This lab is just a basic calorimetry lab.  Students are given three different foods (peanuts, fritos, and marshmallows) and asked to determine the energy content in each.  Students will use this equation to do their calculations:

Energy gained by water = (mass of water) X (Δt of water) X (4.18 J/g°C)

This lab can easily be completed by students who have not yet completed a course in chemistry.

After finding the mass of a food sample, and the initial temperature of water in a calorimeter (coke can), the food is ignited and allowed to completely burn.  The heat lost by the burning food is gained by the water in the can.

Students can determine from their data the amount of energy in each food.  The energy is first calculated in kJ/mol and then converted to cal/mol.

I am fortunate to have the Vernier Probe System at my school.  This makes data collection easy and accurate.  You can still do this lab using a traditional thermometer instead of the probe system.


I am sure that the percent error in this lab is quite high.  However, students get a good idea about the energy content of foods.  Most students predict prior to the lab that the marshmallow will have the most energy.   They mistakingly believe that the higher the sugar content, the higher the energy content of the food.  In this lab, peanuts come through with flying colors with an energy content much, much higher than the other foods.


If interested, here is the lab that I do with my students:  Measuring the Energy in Foods

Snake in My House? Really?

You know I'm a nature lover, but this is going a bit too far!!

When I staggered out of bed this morning, I thought I was still dreaming.  This water moccasin was making its way across the floor of my den!  I realize there is no frame of reference, so you will have to trust me on this.... this snake is about 20 inches long.  Now, in Tennessee, we grow our water moccasins really BIG!  This one is really just a baby.  However, I still did not want it to be co-habitating with me in my house.  

I do not like killing living things....even poisonous water moccasins.  The snake cannot help being a snake.  Its DNA makes it so.  So the next problem was how to get it out of my house without hurting it, and most importantly, how to catch it before it found some way to hide INSIDE my house!

Here's the solution:

My husband grabbed it up with some BBQ tongs and flipped it into this deep plastic garbage can.

We took it down by the pond at the edge of our property and let it go.  

I don't know who was happier....the snake being set free or me knowing it was out of my house!!

Just another day in the life of a biology teacher!

Help! Biology Vocab is Killing Me!

The most common complaint I receive from my students is, "There are too many words, too many definitions, the words are too hard to spell........"


Sound familiar?  I read once that a first year biology class has more new vocabulary words than the first year of taking a foreign language.  I believe that this must be true.  When I talk to a struggling biology student, they will usually tell me that they understand the concepts and they understand the "how and why" things work as they do, but they just hate to memorize the vocabulary words.  


I try very hard to make my class a "concept" class.  I want my students to have a global understanding of how all the parts of biology fit together.  I want them to have the big picture and to be able to relate one process to another.  I want them to be problem solvers and critical thinkers.  But I am a bit old school!!  I still think the students need to have a mastery of the vocabulary that accompanies the concepts.  I think kids need to be able to spell the important and key terms.  (Don't even get me started on spelling...it is becoming  a lost art!!  And why do kids think that it is okay to misspell words??  ARG!)


I thought I would make a list of the strategies and methods I use to help students memorize vocabulary words.  I hope it will give you some ideas that you can use with your students.  And then I would like to hear from you!  I need some new ideas, too!  If you have a strategy that works, please let me hear from you.


Things I do to teach biology vocabulary:

1. My favorite is the old stand-by....the crossword puzzle.  I make a crossword puzzle for every chapter I teach.  Believe it or not, my students actually like these.  Sometimes I assign them for homework, but more often I use them to award some extra credit points on my unit tests.  I give the puzzle out a few days before the test.  If it is completed by test day....accurately....then I give some extra points on the test.  I think this is great reinforcement of associating the term with the correct definition, AND it is also good spelling practice.
2. Teach the biological prefixes and suffixes!  I spend a good bit of time of the beginning of the school year on this.  If the student knows a basic set of prefixes and suffixes, it will help them all year long.  Examples include:  hetero, home, endo, exo, meso, trans, cyto, lysis, etc.
3. Vocabulary Word Scrambles:  I write fill in the blank type questions.  The correct answer is given with the question, but the answer is scrambled.  The student has to unscramble the word to determine the answer.
4. Flash cards:  An oldie but goodie!  I sometimes give extra credit if the student makes a set of flash cards to go with a particular chapter.
5. Powerpoint Jeopardy Review Games:  This is a favorite of my students.  These are a bit time consuming to make, though.  My students really enjoy the game format.  I also post these on my school web site so that the students can access them from home.

I would love to hear your ideas.  Have you got a neat trick that would help the rest of us out?  If so, be sure to leave a comment.  I can always use a new idea!

Meanwhile, you might be interested in some of these links:

FREE Crossword Puzzle:  Flatworms and Roundworms - The phylum Platyhelminthes and the phylum Nematoda.

Cell Organelle Jeopardy Review Game

What's In a Name? A Study of Biological Prefixes and Suffixes

Fungi Word Scramble Study Guide

Don't Forget the Fungi!

My favorite biology joke:  What did the pepperoni say to the mushroom on the pizza?


Answer:  You're a Fun-Guy!  

My unit on the fungi is one of my favorite units to teach.  Most of the students in my biology class have never had any instruction about the Kingdom Fungi before they reach my class.  They are amazed to learn that outside of the animal kingdom, the fungi are our closest relatives!  The fungi have some amazing characteristics!  We depend on them as decomposers.  Life might cease to exist on Earth if it were not for the fungi breaking down and decomposing dead organisms and returning the chemical elements they possess to the ecosystem to be used in new organisms.

Click picture.

Simply put, there is more to the fungi than just that green mold that invades our pantries and refrigerators!  I have just posted my new "Fungi PowerPoint with Notes for Teacher and Student" to my TpT store.  This product is a 56 slide PowerPoint on the Fungi.  It is accompanied by a set of notes for the teacher, and a notes outline for the student.  Students will fill in their outline as the lesson is being presented.

Topics covered are:

1.   What are the fungi?

2.   Characteristics of fungi.

3.   Fungi are heterotrophs.

4.   Methods of food getting in the fungi.

5.   What environment do they prefer?

6.   The structure of fungi:  hyphae, mycelium, fruiting bodies, spores, rhizoids, stolons.

7.   Label the structures of a typical bread mold.

8.   Reproduction in fungi:  fragmentation, budding, spores production, asexual, and sexual reproduction.

9.   Kinds of fungi:  The four phyla are named and examples given for each phylum.

10.  Life cycle of the common bread mold.

11.  Phylum Zygomycota

12.  Phylum Ascomycota

13.  Phylum Basidiomycota

14.  Phylum Deuteromycota

15.  The Ecology of the Fungi: saprophytes, parasites, decomposition.

16.  Symbiotic relationships of fungi:  mutualism, commensalism, parasitism.

17.  Lichens and Mycorrhizae

I am also just about finished with a new FREE product on this topic, so stayed tuned for that.  I will add it to the list of freebies at the top left of my blog as soon as possible.

Happy Teaching!

Linky Party on The Lesson Cloud

Hey Guys!!


For the month of November, The Lesson Cloud is hosting its very first linky party celebrating all things Science and Math.  This blog is amazing!!  There have been over 100,000 page hits since its inception, including nearly 1000 people following on Facebook and 275 following on Blogger.  All of the products listed in the Linky Party are math and/or science products.  some of them are priced products, but many, many of them are links to free products.


The party continues through the end of November, so check back often to find new science and math products each day!