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Book Chapter |
Our sensory organs are finely tuned instruments that not only detect but also measure different environmental inputs. In particular, our eyes, ears, and nose are extraordinary sensors. The tasks these organs face are…
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Beetlemice Multitudes!!! Power Law and Exponential Scaling
Book Chapter |
Scaling describes how a quantity changes over time or with the size of a system. It can also be defined as how a quantity changes in relation to any other parameter. When you stop and think about it, all of the…
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Oops, I Did It Again: Errors in Measurement
Book Chapter |
Understanding the precision and accuracy of measurements is a crucial skill that scientists must develop to do their work. All measurements involve some degree of error. Knowing how to assess and work with error is an…
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Book Chapter |
Is a virus bigger than a bacterium? Is the distance from the Earth to the Moon greater than the diameter of the Earth? In this investigation, students explore the relative sizes of things through a card-sorting activity…
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It’s Not All Relative: Relative Versus Absolute
Book Chapter |
Learning about the sizes of things and scale engages students in thinking about conceptual benchmarks for sizes. In this investigation, students learn to order objects on a relative scale, as well as to accurately label…
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Time Flies When You’re Learning About Scale!
Book Chapter |
Not many students would forget to say “Dinosaurs!” if you mention the Jurassic period, yet the word scale only conjures up ideas of measuring objects. Most students automatically think of measuring mass, volume, or…
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Billions of Us: Scale and Population
Book Chapter |
Population is increasingly important as both a scientific and a political subject. The world is getting more crowded. Providing students with the tools to understand population numbers is not only important for their…
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Book Chapter |
When building a dollhouse or a model of a car or a cell, close attention to the details is crucial to making it look accurate and realistic. A consistent scaling factor for all details in the model is critical. In this…
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Book Chapter |
It is not difficult to think of reasons why it is important for students to understand that a round globe represents our planet. After all, Earth is our home in space. Environmentalists remind us that it’s the only home…
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The Promise of Professional Learning Communities
Book Chapter |
In this chapter, the authors discuss the origin and the characteristics of professional learning communities (PLCs) and summarize the research findings on the impact and results achieved by schools that are organized as…
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"Late-Start Mondays": The Catalyst for Change in an Urban High School
Book Chapter |
At the high school level, the task of creating a whole-school community of practice is often monumental and requires tremendous energy to disrupt the status quo. The story that follows describes the process by which a…
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Teaching Learning Collaborative: A Process for Supporting Professional Learning Communities
Book Chapter |
The teaching learning collaborative (TLC) is a unique professional development strategy that engages groups of teachers in collaborative planning and teaching of a science lesson, coaching and mentoring, and examining…
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Building Professional Development Cadres
Book Chapter |
This chapter begins with a vignette based on several anecdotes that were relayed to the authors during their years working in the Los Angeles basin with a cadre of professional developers. This story sets the stage for…
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Creating and Sustaining Science-Focused Professional Learning Communities Through Partnerships
Book Chapter |
In this chapter, the authors share selected components of The North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership (NCOSP) model for professional learning communities (PLCs) and the impact those communities had on instruction…
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Book Chapter |
After five years of developing and investigating professional learning communities (PLCs) in school districts in Arizona, the authors have uncovered attributes that differentiate high-performing PLCs from lower-…
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