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Out of curiosity, what's your favorite Scipack? What makes it your favorite?

Hi Jill, My favorite SciPack so far is the Coral Reefs one because it applies to a lot of the Hawaii Content Performance Standards for life and environmental science for first grade. I will definitely use what I learned from it to teach my students about the different structures sea animals and plants have that help them survive in their environment, physical characteristics that help them live in their environment, and how similar sea animals and plants differ. Since Hawaii is surrounded by water, it is important for my students to learn about the ocean and why it's important to take care of it. Also, since my students always go to the beach, I feel that teaching my students about the coral reefs are relevant to them.

I've really enjoyed the Interdependence of Life SciPack. It has a great deal of relevance for the elementary standards. Ocean's Effects on Weather and Science is a good one as well.

Great question, Jill. I am very curious about what people might recommend. So far, I have only completed two SciPacks. Out of the two, I liked the Earth, Moon, and Sun SciPack. It was a wonderful refresher course and it helped me gain an appreciation for the night sky. I felt enlightened because of all the important knowledge I gained. Also, I wanted to share the information I learned because I was able to explain what was happening to the earth, moon, and sun, while sharing which scientist discovered it.

I have only completed one SciPack so far, but it was the Coral Reef Ecosystems SciPack. I also teach lower elementary (kindergarten) and it is also important for me to seek out what can be used for my kids. I thought it was alot of information, and very high level thinking, but it is to stimulate growth in us educators, so I found it helpful. The parts that I thought I could use for my class were the sections that taught about different corals and how they are animals and not plants (I did not know this!), and different reef inhabitants and how they survive in their habitat, how different animals help each other (or not) to survive, and what things (natural and human-caused) destroy our reefs. It could give our students reason to take care of our oceans if you present to them the endangered animals. I hope this helped!

I like the nutrition scipack because it's simple, basic, straightforward, and the easiest scipack I've completed. I believe it's because nutrition is everywhere and a daily part of my life. I also like it because I can use it with my first graders. They understood my lessons because it's relevant to their lives. Creating and implementing lessons on nutrition wasn't as hard as the physic scipacks. I feel the physics scipacks are not as easy to implement with first graders.

My favorite SciPack is also the Nutrition SciPack. I thought that it contained important information that tied in to my state's standards. I also thought that the simulations and pictures that were included in the SciPack were very useful.