Coweta Science Update

Explore Georgia's freshwater systems and learn how they supply clean water to residents and businesses across the state in Georgia's Water Live Exploration! Tune in live on Thursday, May 6, 2021, at 10 AM ET on gpb.org/water or on your local Georgia Public Broadcasting TV channel.

In this live virtual field trip, students will learn about the water cycle, witness how water is treated, hear from a variety of water professionals, and discover ways we can help protect our freshwater systems. This event includes live interactive elements, such as polls and experts who are available to answer students' questions. Use #GAWaterLive to participate in the conversation.

Georgia's Water Live Exploration is aligned to Georgia standards and targets an audience in 3rd-8th grades. The program will be available on demand after May 6th with supplemental classroom resources for grades K-12. The exploration will be live streamed on gpb.org/water and will be televised on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Keeping your students engaged in May is a challenge. Arcelia Dalton from Hall County has a great lesson to share that combines biomimicry and the engineering design process. Students will develop a process to collect, filter, and story water. This can work for any grade level! Check out the YouTube video here.

This project is similar to the Great Georgia Pollinator Census. Georgia DNR is looking for your help to monitor summer bat roosts across the state. This project involves counting bats exiting roosts at sunset just twice during each summer. Think you can help? Keep reading!

• Bat Monitoring for Climbers

Bats may use a variety of structures for roosting, both man-made and natural. Here are some examples:

• Bat House (find out more about installing your own bat house)
• Bat Condo
• Houses
• Barns
• Other Buildings
• Bridges
• Mines
• Trees
• Caves

How do you count bats? First you need to figure out where bats are coming out. If it’s a bat house or bat condo, that’s easy. But other structures may have multiple areas for bats to exit. Look for signs like staining and guano (bat poop) to figure out where the bats are coming in and out.

Come early! Set up and be ready for counting at least 30 minutes before sunset. Bats usually come out before it’s completely dark.

To count bats, you should position yourself near the roost with the night sky as a background whenever possible. DO NOT shine lights at the roost to count bats. This may prevent bats from exiting. It’s also a good idea to be quiet during bat emergence.

Not all bats will leave the roost every night. You may still hear some squeaking from inside the roost, but you can stop counting when the exit slows down and bats are only coming out occasionally. You may also notice some bats coming back in. That’s a good time to stop. Most emergences will not last more than 30 minutes to an hour.

For decades, scientists and birders alike have assumed that most female birds don’t sing. Galactic Polymath—an education studio focused on helping scientists, nonprofits, and sustainable companies translate cutting-edge science research into meaningful interdisciplinary lessons for grades 5–12—challenges this assumption with a lesson about data visualization and how assumptions and biases can affect conclusions. This three-part lesson supports the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and is differentiated for three grade bands (5–6, 7–8, and 9–12).

Part One, Ciphers and Data Visuals, uses a “Polymath Puzzle” to engage students in carefully studying a scatter plot to discover how female song has been missed in barn swallows (a very common bird species). Part Two, From Tables to Graphs, builds on discoveries from the first lesson as students make a scatter plot from the bird study data and learn how histograms (bar graphs) are created by binning data into ranges. Part Three, Visualizing Song Data, incorporates knowledge from both lessons as students create a histogram from the bird study data, then use the scatter plot created in lesson two and the histogram for reflection and synthesis. The lesson includes materials for educators (e.g., background information, vocabulary, explanatory videos, lesson timeline) to facilitate implementation in both remote teaching (using Nearpod) and in-person settings.

This resource has more than a dozen lessons and activities to build K–12 learners’ plastic literacy and inspire thoughtful solutions to plastic and water pollution issues. Developed by The 5 Gyres Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on reducing the amount of plastic in the environment, the guide’s lessons cover topics from tracking and recording daily trash data and adopting strategies for using resources wisely (e.g., World of Waste, grades K–3; Landfill in a Bottle, grades 4–6; and Packaging Your Product, grades 7–12) to understanding how plastics pollution can affect both water quality and water organisms (e.g., The Storm Drain Connection, grades K–3; Spill Spread, grades 4–6; and You Are What You Eat, grades 7–12). Although the lessons were written before the NGSS were created, they include relevant background information and extension ideas, and the activity content can be a starting point to developing student-centered, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning experiences for today’s classrooms.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Sea Grant programs have a collection of websites featuring lesson plans, virtual field trips, citizen science opportunities, activity ideas, videos/webinars, and other educational materials for grades K–12 to use in at-home learning settings nationwide. The resources are produced by state-specific Sea Grant programs (see Georgia's version here); however, teachers, students, and parents in any location can use the materials to learn about the plants and animals and other unique features of a particular region. Take a trip to the Hawaiian islands to study species living in the coral reefs; learn about the impacts of climate change and oil spills through Estuary Live!, a virtual field trip to Louisiana; or collect plant data and be a citizen scientist through project BudBurst in Oregon. Visit the Sea Grant Programs homepage and select a state of interest to preview that state’s educational resources, or download the hyperlinked pdf, Sea Grant Educational Resources Summary, for links to all the state-specific Sea Grant programs in a single location.

Check out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Trash Trip with the Marine Debris Tracker App, a five-minute video guiding users—including high school students and teachers—through the processes of safely collecting, logging, and tracking trash data using the app. In tracking and submitting trash data, scientists gain a better picture of marine debris issues, and citizens contribute to their community by helping to keep it clean and reducing the amount of trash that ends up in the waterways. A transcript of the video is also available.

Through virtual exhibits from the Museum of Science, Boston, students of all ages can meet experts, observe leafcutter ants in action, discover the science behind Pixar Animation Studios, and explore and identify animal skulls—all without leaving their seats! The multimedia exhibits incorporate videos, discussion questions, and activities, and many also include opportunities to connect with experts in the field. For example, in The Science Behind Pixar exhibit, students can submit questions about any of Pixar’s processes (such as story and art, rigging, sets and cameras, and rendering) to be answered by a Pixar employee and posted on the exhibit website.

Ever wondered what really happens to recyclables after they leave the bin? Featuring colorful illustrations and short, explanatory text, this article from National Geographic Kids describes how materials are sorted at a recycling facility, covering eight steps in the process from initial delivery to a materials recovery facility (Truck Stop), through various classifying categorizations (e.g., Pushover; Bad Bags; Surfin’ Paper; Shattering Glass; Poof, Plastic; Plastics Sorting; Magnetic Magic), on to fully separated, baled materials ready for future reuse (Last Stop). A poster version of the article (downloadable as a PDF) is also available.

Are you looking to explore the surface of the Sun from your phone? We have an app for that! The Lawrence Hall of Science continues its long tradition of excellence in educational technology with a suite of new apps that explore hands-on science and important health topics.

The DIY (Do It Yourself) app series is a great way for families or individual learners to explore four science topic areas with hands-on activities with step-by-step instructions, dynamic simulations and live data feeds, rich simulations, and videos. Do you want to learn more about how your body works or see DNA? How about building a model lung or discovering what happens at the bottom of a lake? Find all this and more using DIY Sun Science, DIY Human Body, DIY Nano, and DIY Lake Science.

Are you in the mood for an adventure game? Why not try to help Ragnar, the friendly monster with a heart problem? Through animations, simulations, achievements, and arcade action, kids of all ages will learn about cardiovascular conditions and what steps can be taken to keep you and your monster healthy. How about a fast-paced arcade game? Try Space Chef and race against the clock to sort through an array of ingredients and construct healthy recipes. Or how about a story? Check out I Got This, and learn what it's like for a teen to live with type 2 diabetes.

Boeing and Discovery Education are celebrating Earth Day with an ecoAction Virtual Field Trip! Targeted for grades 6–8, the approximately 30-minute video explores ways students can help improve the environment with regard to air, land, water, or waste—as well as what a large company like Boeing can do to improve the environment in these areas. Educational materials, including a downloadable video companion guide featuring lesson plans and student handouts for pre-, during-, and post-video activities, accompany the trip. In addition, an online interview with Elizabeth Crawford, a Boeing health and safety specialist, offers a glimpse of a dynamic STEM career and information about what students need to do to get there.

Understanding the reasons for the seasons is challenging to teach in any educational setting, but especially so in remote learning environments. Seasons, a curriculum for grades 6–8 produced through Harvard University’s WorldWide Telescope Ambassador Program, contains digital resources to make the task easier. In addition to explanatory videos on topics such as rotation and revolution, the curriculum contains videos to help teachers understand the best methods to model the day/night relationship between Earth and the Sun, as well as Earth’s tilted axis. Instead of conducting hands-on explorations with these models in the classroom, digital learners can view the educator videos to learn how the models work and understand what makes them effective representations. The videos are accompanied by curriculum materials, including teacher guide, student worksheets, and answer keys.

Engage students in celestial studies with Star Party, a browser-based digital learning experience produced as part of the Infiniscope project, a collaborative initiative between Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate focused on engaging learners of all ages in better understanding the vastness of space and space exploration. Star Party teaches students about stellar evolution as they learn about scientific ways of knowing, such as how models can be used to further science understandings. In this lesson, students use a model to create stars from stellar nebula and track those stars through their life cycles. Interactive pop-up boxes with information, tips, and guiding questions teach students about life cycle of a star and help them collect evidence about star colors, luminosity, solar mass, lifespans, composition, and temperature. A teacher guide—with lesson vocabulary, a 5E-formatted lesson plan, and relevant student handouts and answer keys—is included.

GaDOE has launched a new innovative platform to provide the opportunity for science teachers and GaDOE staff to collaborate, connect and share thoughts and resources as well as encouragement for the 2020-2021 school year! The instructions below will help guide you in the creation of your account and navigating to the virtual professional learning communities that you are interested in.

Step 1: To get started, visit the GaDOE community website via this link, select "Create an Account" and follow the prompts for setting up a new account on the platform.

Step 2: Once you have completed your account you will have to wait briefly for activation/approval. Once approved, you are ready to join a group! Navigate to the "Groups" section. For science teachers and leader, there are several groups available to join: Select and join the groups you are most interested in.

Below are the codes for the Coweta Science Google Classrooms. Be sure to join for the latest info and update. Google Classroom will be the primary manner I communicate with teachers in Coweta County.

Help me to help you! Let me know who you are, where and what you teach. I'll share the directory with everyone so you can form your own learning communities. Just click on this link. Easy-peasy!

Looking for help in teaching online (or in person)? Want to master Google Classroom? Want to know how to make a Bitmoji interactive page like all of your friends? Look no further than the CCSS Professional Learning Website. Its your one stop shop for professional learning!

Please contact Dr. Donald White with any questions or comments.

Email: donald.white@cowetaschools.net
Website: https://sites.google.com/cowetaschools.net/coweta-science/home
Location: 167 Werz Industrial Boulevard, Newnan, GA 30263
Phone: 770-254-2800
Twitter: @dwhitesciguy