Sunday, August 25, 2019

My resource for this week is Explore Learning Gizmos. This website offers a wide array of scientific simulations that fit perfectly with Georgia's middle grades standards. There are simulations for 8th-grade physical science topics, like Boyle's and Charles' Law, stoichiometry, and unit conversions. There's also earth science and life science topics covered ( Earthquake lab, plant simulations, and senses stimulation). This is a great resource for middle school science teachers because it offers content-area literacy through an interactive simulation. Students are able to form questions and hypotheses before-hand, complete the simulation, then analyze and summarize their results. While it might not be a direct reading of a text, the students are still putting their reading skills to practice by following instructions, forming questions, using background knowledge to hypothesize, and analyzing their results. These simulations can help expand a student's scientific literacy. "Scientific literacy means that a person can ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences. It means that a person has the ability to describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena" (National Academies Press). When learning science, it's not something that can just be read, it has to be done. By that I mean a student will absorb material and have an all-around better understanding of a topic if they read about it and experiment, question, discuss and problem solve. These interactive resources facilitate a complete understanding of topics and offer an easy way for teachers to explain material in a different way. Explore Learning is a great resource for math educators as well. They offer a wide variety of simulations related to math concepts ranging from grades 6-12. (Word Count: 273)


Click the picture to access Gizmos



Citation:
Read "National Science Education Standards" at NAP.edu. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/4962/chapter/4

Source: https://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=Controller.dspFreeGizmos

1 comment:

  1. I think this website is a very useful resource for science teachers! Simulations can be extremely helpful especially in the science world because some concepts such as DNA replication can't be done in a hands on experiment. I liked what Callie said about needing to read the text and experiment for yourself. While learning new topics, it’s easy to read about something and think you understand. Then, two weeks go by, and you’ve forgotten everything you once learned. Hands on experiments and simulations help solidify these concepts, so they won’t be forgotten. (word count 92)

    ReplyDelete

At the beginning of the semester I didn’t see the importance of incorporating literacy into a science classroom, nor did I know where to...