Forums

Hi everyone, can you help me ?

 I'm looking for something new that will make my science class more fun and exciting. Do you have any suggestions? Anything would be a great help. 



Thanks alot! :) 

Try having your students write poetry. I think amazon has a few books about that.

if a longer poem is not your thing; try Haikus. My kids love it. As for the youtubes; challenge them to find the "best" tutorial or explanation; and then have them critique it: vocab, communication, etc. Even more fun: find a bunch of "try this" videos, a la turn water to marbles and have them critique, debunk, etc. I did a small genius hour trial with my class: more successful than I'd hoped, so will work this summer on ways to expand it. (I am high school in a private school, so it is admittedly easier for me to try something offbeat)

I agree with Haikus as well. This book is currently free on amazon kindle, "Life Science in Rhyme from a Teacher with too much free time." It's a little high level but I think you can edit it based on what you need.

Great question, Ma. Trina and awesome ideas here. One subject that I struggled with making exciting at first was DNA and the central dogma until I discovered the fun of integrating kinesthetic models using the students in the class. One of my favorites is to do a relay race with two teams for protein synthesis outside in giant chalked cells. It is a blast! If it can be done with DNA it can be done with anything! I just came across an awesome article in the latest NSTA magazine 'The Science Teacher' describing another whole class model for DNA. Check it out: https://learningcenter.nsta.org/resource/default.aspx?id=10.2505%2f4%2ftst16_083_05_26
What are you currently planning? Maybe we can kick around some ideas with you on this forum:)

Add technology into the classroom. Fun videos from Youtube and assessment apps like Kahoot are a great start. I think group work would add some fun too. This also would facilitate peer learning to some degree. You could ask your students what they are interested in and design a lesson plan or even just a project around that. Also try to relate the material to your students lives. Make it relevant to them. They will be more engaged and it will be fun to them.

Hello, I have a pilot program for gaining teacher's feedback on new interactive reading passages called Journeys. Journeys incorporate real-world data scenarios, case study narratives of real researchers, and citizen science opportunities. You can see a sample at STEMJourneys.org, and I would be very interested in having you pilot for the Ambassador's program. Thanks for considering this!