The Get Real! Science Blog

What’s so important about a “big idea” anyways?
What comes to mind when you think of a big idea? Really think about it. Do you think you would be able to come up with a big idea if it weren’t for your background knowledge? The little ideas you have? Or anything that has sparked your interest?
 
Today I am going to blog about what a big idea means in the classroom, and how educators implement a big idea within the content we are teaching. According to Concept-Based Teaching and Learning, incorporating the big ideas into our teaching influences our students to […]

Hello, Scientist!

Have you ever dug a hole in the ground- perhaps at a park, or in your backyard, or at Charlotte Beach? What did you see? What changes did you notice as you dug deeper and deeper into the ground? Did you begin to wonder how far you could dig? When I was a young scientists I remember digging a hole in the sand at the beach. My brothers and I dug for hours! I remember our grandmother asking us if we were trying to dig a hole all the way to China! We looked at each other surprised, […]

What would it be like to see the world like a bat?

Bats are truly fascinating animals, and not only because they are the only mammals who have wings. Bats also have a very unique way of perceiving (seeing) their environment. Even though bats have perfectly good eyes that they use to navigate their surroundings during the daytime (nope, bats are not blind), they don’t actually rely on them when they are hunting for food. You see, bats are nocturnal, meaning that they spend most of their waking hours during the night, when their eyes can’t actually be of much […]

This week, my students and I completed a unit on newton’s laws, momentum and car safety. The ultimate goal of the units was to have students design and build

at least 3 safety features for a passenger (an egg) in a model car (lab cart), test it (hopefully surviving the crash), and then use their understanding of physics to explain how each feature intended to increase safety and reduce harm, and perform calculations that provide further evidence of their claims.

The unit began with a simple question:

“What do you think would be most harmful to a person’s body, a rear end […]

Hello good people! This week is Sydney and I’s turn to write the class blog. This past week we met once more with the group of Master Teachers and discussed student autonomy and how to bring more of it into the classroom. They provided us with a ton of resources that they’ve used in our own classroom (thanks if you’re reading this). We (the cohort) were also tasked with further investigating the footholds of Ambitious Science Teaching. Check out the rest of the cohort’s blogs to find out more. What is the most exciting, however, is that we will […]

Weekly Recap
It’s been another busy and exciting week for the GR!S preservice team! We began the week with the opportunity to attend the Science Teachers Association of New York State (STANYS) annual conference here in Rochester, NY. Check out Sydney’s blog  for a recap on our experiences! 
For several of us, this week kicked off our mini-unit implementation: a series of lessons we have been developing over time under the guidance of our cooperating teachers. Check out James’ blog post on his experiences here! 

This week we, Kaitlin and Olivia, will report out on the first day of our mini-unit, as […]