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5 E(z) Steps to
Earth-Moon Scaling: Measurements and Magnitudes Matter
Book Chapter |
Learners are surprised to learn that most textbook illustrations incorrectly represent the relative sizes and/or distance between Earth and its single moon. Although these and other visual representations of our solar…
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Acronyms and Acrostics Articulate Attributes of Science (and Science Teaching)
Book Chapter |
Learners’ ideas about the nature of science, school science, and science teaching are elicited by their creation of acronyms or acrostics that define key characteristics of science and teaching. An Extension activity…
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Tackling the Terrible Tyranny of Terminology: Divide and Conquer
Book Chapter |
Big, hard words in science are invariably made up of small, easy Greek- and Latin-based prefixes, suffixes, and root words that students can systematically learn, continually use, and creatively recombine. An unusually…
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Inquiring Into Reading
as Meaning-Making: Do Spelling and Punctuation Really Matter?
Book Chapter |
Learners are asked to read a passage full of misspelled words. Many readers are able to discern the meaning despite the numerous intentionally embedded errors. In a second exercise, learners experience how the meaning…
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Ambiguous Text: Meaning-Making in Reading and Science
Book Chapter |
Learners are asked to read one or more passages of ambiguous, discrepant text where they understand the individual words (or “trees”) but are hard-pressed to connect the words with an overall context (or “forest”) to…
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Resurrection Plant: Making Science Come Alive!
Book Chapter |
An inanimate, seemingly dead, 3–5 in. ball-shape brown object placed in water and exposed to sunlight is observed to “come back alive” and turn into a vibrant green photosynthetic plant over a period of anywhere from…
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Glue Mini-Monster: Wanted Dead or Alive?
Book Chapter |
A drop of clear, colorless, viscous liquid (i.e., a specific brand of modeling glue) assumes the role of an unknown macroscopic, single-celled organism in this demonstration. When placed in a petri dish of water, it is…
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Water “Stick-to-It-Ness”: A Penny for Your Thoughts
Book Chapter |
Water (in contrast to other clear, household liquids) assumes and maintains a very distinct semispherical shape when placed on a piece of waxed paper. For related reasons, a discrepantly large number of drops of water…
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Burdock and Velcro: Mother Nature Knows Best
Book Chapter |
In this chapter’s activity, Velcro is explored as an example of a human-engineered invention that was a “copycat” inspired by a naturally evolved, “bio-engineered” seed distribution innovation.
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Book Chapter |
Did you ever look out the window on a nice day and dream about what fun it would be to hold class outside? Your students probably feel the same way! Teaching outdoors is rewarding for both teachers and students, and…
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Does Money Grow on School Yard Trees? Resources for Your Outdoor Classroom
Book Chapter |
Activities in this book may excite you, but how will you pay for them? Money does not grow on trees—even trees in a school yard. The challenge for environmental educators is to channel grant funds, donations of goods…
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Birds, Bugs, and Butterflies: Science Lessons for Your Outdoor Classroom
Book Chapter |
Among the wild animals that may travel through a school yard, birds, bugs, and butterflies are the most common—the focus of most of the lessons in this chapter. It offers a variety of activities to allow you to “tame”…
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It All Adds Up! Math + Science + Outdoors = Fun
Book Chapter |
Creative mathematics teachers will tell you that math is everywhere and science cannot be taught without math. When students are taken outdoors, they will find that math is everywhere. Many of the lessons in this…
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Reading and Writing About Nature
Book Chapter |
The integration of science and language arts is an effective way for teachers to enhance students’ comprehension and critical thinking and the requirements of curriculum. Both writing and reading can be readily…
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Social Studies: Humans and the Outdoors
Book Chapter |
The history of humans interacting with the land is the perfect context for a number of outdoor learning experiences. Humans have relied on the Sun to tell time or on plants to provide food sources, shelter, and clothing…
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