Profile | NSTA

Ruth Hutson
Blue Valley High School
KS

Blue Valley High School is a small rural high school in Northeast Kansas. I have the privilege of being the only high school science teacher in my district. I am fortunate to be able to teach the same students throughout their entire high school career. This year, I am teaching Applied Statistics and Analysis in Science, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Physics, and College Biology. I love the challenges that this workload presents and enjoy integrating all the disciplines of science with math and statistics so students best understand the process of science.

Public Collections
Recent Public Collections by Ruth

Hurricanes

Resources that can be used to track hurricanes for a high school Earth Science classroom.

8 Resources

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Teaching the Connection between Weather and Climate in the Elementary School Classroom

These are a selection of resources to add elementary school teachers to help their students understand the relationship between weather and climate

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Forum Posts
Recent Posts by Ruth

Thu, Jun 03, 2021 2:49 PM in Introducing science

Hi Brenda, I agree with Matt's response. One of the best ways to introduce science to students is to have them look at phenomena. You can do this in many ways. You could ask them to look at what is going on around them. You could show them a cool demonstration or a discrepant events that makes them wonder. Whatever it is make sure it is something that will spark a student...

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Thu, May 06, 2021 9:15 AM in microscope repair help

You could look into getting replacement objectives. Depending on the brand of microscope, many microscopes have standard parts that you can switch out. What type of microscope do you have?

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Sat, Feb 08, 2020 1:01 PM in Crosscutting Concepts as Lenses to Explore Phenomena

I just finished the breakout session with Joi Merritt. I loved how she mapped out how to use the crosscutting concepts across age levels. Since I am a high school chemistry teacher, my biggest take-home from this session was her example of using the crosscutting concept of Patterns to help students make sense of Periodic Table Trends. She explained how teachers can help their students under...

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Reviews
Recent Reviews by Ruth

Sat, Dec 07, 2019 3:35 PM
Great science update!

This NSTA Science Update web seminar was excellent and so timely for my Earth Science class. The historical overview at the beginning of the program showed the planning and implementation process that NASA underwent to study Saturn and its satellites. It was a trip down memory lane for me, but my students were fascinated as it was completely new information to them. It was exciting to see NASA's plans for the future and the brainstorming and planning process involved. I hope that NSTA continue these Science Updates. I love them.

Wed, Nov 13, 2019 10:36 AM
A myriad of resources for classroom teachers!

If you teach earth science or environmental science, you need to check out this web seminar. Deke Arndt gave a very informative, resource packed web seminar. He did a super job explaining the state of current climate science and how scientists are measuring the changes we are currently observing and how they have been measured in the past. I especially appreciated Arndt's explanation concerning how changing climate will affect humans and their activities. He provided some great analogies about how an unstable climate versus a stable climate affects weather. But, most importantly, Arndt showed us where we can look for the most up-to-date information.

Tue, Oct 01, 2019 11:12 AM
Excellent inquiry activity

The author describes an excellent inquiry lab that uses live crustaceans (isopods). I appreciate that a colony of isopods can be easily maintained. The space these model organisms would require in a classroom would be minimal. This would be an unique way to study food preference and extensions could be made using Data Nugget data from other organismal studies. The suggested extension of a statistical analysis would be a welcome addition in my College Biology course. However, my high school biology students would also enjoy this type of ecological study. I plan to use it this year with my students.

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