Tyler's Science Methods Blog

      The first thing we did in class was check on our fast plants, and see just how tall they have become as they near their final stage. This week we continued learning about food chains and discussed what would happen if a specific scenario happened to our biome. Our biome was the forest, which was affected by deforestation causing the loss of most of our secondary consumers and, as a result, their predators. Later, we discussed sea turtles and read the book "Turtle, Turtle, Watch out!" We did an activity with fortune tellers involving whether our turtles made it to the ocean or were stopped before they could. I was able to learn about the different human and environmental factors that affect sea turtles through this. I am able to relate this lesson to what I already knew because I knew about Sea Turtles and the danger they face escaping from their eggs into the ocean, however I did not know that it is only 1 in 1,000 sea turtles that survive into adulthood. My new que...

      This week in class we learned a lot about different ecosystems and more specifically the transfer of energy through food chains. We learned how much energy is captured by the first part of the food chain, and how much of that energy makes its way to the top of the chain. We worked together to make our own food chains based off an ecosystem that we picked in discussion. I am able to relate this to what I already knew, because I remember learning about food-chains in elementary school, however we did not talk about the transfer of energy. I thought the transfer of energy and how much is lost through the food chain was an interesting thing to learn about and helped give me background to food chains. Finally, I do have some questions about how the energy makes its way up and is lost. How does all the energy get lost when it is stored inside the animals and plants, and where does all the energy used by plants and animals go after they have absorbed it? In class we a...

      In discussion this week we began by checking in on our fast plants after 1 week of growth as well as our butterfly habitats who were making good progress in their pupae. The pupae did not visibly change, but the fast plants had sprouted considerably from last week and grown quite tall. One important thing we discussed was the 5E model of science teaching/learning. The 5Es stand for Engage, Elaborate, Explore, Explain, and Evaluate. We presented in groups each creating different presentations about the model.     5E Presentation.pptx I was glad to be able to learn about this model as well as how you can interchange the order of the pieces to suit your teaching style. I was able to understand how important the pieces are as well as how to use them and what they mean. I find this model really helpful and important for me to keep in mind as a future educator because it really helps me keep my learning target in mind.

  This week we learned about the different life cycles of some animals, and made our own life cycle demonstrations as seen above. We learned about the life cycles of meal worms, butterflies, and plants. We also planted our own fast plants to see their life cycles.  I can relate this to what I already knew because I had already learned about the life cycles of butterflies and plants, but I got to learn more about the stages of specifically plants. I got to specifically see and learn about the different stages in the life cycle of a plant and how they work. I can apply what I learned to my own teaching so that I can successfully use plants and butterflies to show my future students about life cycles. I learned about properly caring for them so I can demonstrate using them, and also learned how to teach using them and different ways to use them in the classroom.