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Next semester I will be teaching earth science for the first time.
I am a biology and general science certified teacher. The last time I even took an earth science class was.... I think 6th grade. I don't even know.
I will be teaching earth science to 9th graders, a majority of whom will require special education services. (Not sure of the exact mix yet.) I will not have a support teacher with me.
I don't even know where to start. Any suggestions?
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I had to teach an Earth Science course for teachers and created a collection for them. I am attaching that collection. Good luck.
There are 22 resources in the collection. Disregard the weird number of items that is stated.
Earth Science Collection
(22 items)
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Hi Stefani,
Congratulations on your new venture! The first thing you need to know is what part of earth science you will be teaching and what standards you will need to cover. From there you can narrow the content down to a manageable 2 to 4 units for the semester. For example, do you have to cover weather, catastrophic events, or geology? If you are in a school district where they truly don't care what you teach, then choose something you have an interest in learning more about. The NSTA Learning Center will be a huge help to you. Do you know about the PD Indexer?
There are 8 multiple choice assessments to choose from there in the Earth and Space Science category. If you find out that you will need to teach about plate tectonics, then I would suggest you take the Plate Tectonics diagnostic to see if you are weak in that area. Then the NSTA webpage grades your assessment and comes up with a list of resources available to help you master the content that you don't understand. Sometimes one of the resources will be a science object. This is a 2 - 3 hour learning module that you can download for free to help you understand the content for that category. It is a place to begin. As you give us more information about what you will be teaching, I am sure many of us will chime in with some great ideas for labs, activities, etc. Best of luck!
Carolyn
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Thank you for your responses! I will look over those ideas!
I have to teach what the state of North Carolina mandates. So...
http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/docs/acre/standards/new-standards/science/earth-env.pdf
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Stefanie, be sure to join the earth science listserv.
Matt
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I know that a lot of the material was covered in other classes. The problem is that they take an earth science like class in elementary school, and that's it until they get to me. They don't take biology until after my class. (Earth is 9th grade, biology is 10th) So unfortunately I do have to teach that whole curriculum in 90 days (one semester), and there is a state test for it.
Thank you everyone for your ideas. I promise that I am going to have a look at them! Right now I'm just trying to make it to Christmas break.
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I took an assignment to teach Earth Science like you did and I found this set of books to be so helpful. This helps provide hands on experiences to teach concepts that are difficult to talk about or describe. It is called "Project Earth Science" 4 volume set through the NSTA bookstore. Here is a link that I think will get you to a site to purchase or look inside before you buy. I use this set for nearly every topic, Earth, Weather, Space and Geology.
www.nsta.org/store/product_detail.aspx?id=10.2505/9781936959037?
Hope this helps!
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Thanks for sharing that information about the Project Earth Science books, Peggy! I noticed in the NSTA book store that they offer a free book chapter to download and look at too. Here is the URL to access the free book chapter for the Geology book. As Peggy mentioned all four books can be purchased separately or as a set for under $100 to members of NSTA.
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