Strawberry Patch Science

July 23, 2021
Educational Innovations Blog

By Jared Hottenstein

Science really is everywhere – even in a strawberry patch! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.

I’m afraid of lunch ladies.  They’re intimidating.  I guess you need to be if you’re dealing with hundreds of hungry kids in a small cafeteria.  As a kid, I usually kept my head down and brown-bagged it (unless it was pizza day).  I didn’t want to do anything to upset the ladies who ran the lunchroom.  I carried that fear with me even after I became a teacher. 

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Leave a Comment » | Elementary level, engineering, experiments, life science, Middle School level | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Donna Giachetti

Wild Animal Webcam Ideas

April 16, 2021
Educational Innovations Blog

By Jared Hottenstein

Of all the branches of science we teach, life science presents the greatest hands-on challenges.  You can always pick up a classroom set of Educational Innovations’ Owl Pellets, but bringing live animals into the classroom is a tricky proposition.  Online learning is the perfect opportunity for students to explore the world of life science—especially through a streaming webcam!  Think of it as your students getting the chance to watch “life science celebrities.”  Students can tune in once a day—or once a week—to see what new snack mama eagle brought back to the nest. 

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Leave a Comment » | College level, distance learning, Elementary level, experiments, High School level, Middle School level, STEM | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Donna Giachetti

Frog Competition Chaos

February 7, 2020

By Julie Pollard

“When am I going to ever use this?”  “Why do I even need to know this?”  These questions are the bane of the science teacher’s existence—or at least of mine.  Even though science is woven into every aspect of every day of our lives, my middle schoolers just can’t seem to make that leap.  They’re like frogs who don’t know how to jump. They still think of science as something done by nerds in white coats in labs.

During our unit on ecosystems and competition, my students seem to struggle with the concept of competition for abiotic factors.  They have no problem relating to the predator-and-prey, competition-for-food aspect of competition—which makes sense, if you’ve ever watched eighth grade boys racing for the last slice of pizza.

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8 Comments | Biology, College level, Earth Science, High School level, life science, Middle School level | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Donna Giachetti