*----------------------------------------------*
|   GOOD   |    BAD     |        MAYBE         |
*----------------------------------------------*
| .edu     | .com       | .org                 |
| .gov     | .net       |                      |
*----------------------------------------------*
| nmt.edu  | ask.com    | GOOD                 |
| unm.edu  | answers.   | nmnaturalhistory.org |
| usgs.gov | yahoo.com  | BAD                  |
| noaa.gov | wiki/wikia | wikipedia.org        |
*----------------------------------------------*
Websites with many advertisements are trying 
to sell things to you. Avoid these websites.

These are the guidelines I give my students to help them find high quality websites for in-class research. They are not perfect, but they save us a lot of time.

Weather Log

UPDATE: I’ve added a key to help students learn the symbols and their associations. I’ve also created an HTML file that acts as a random generator for calling out the letters and symbols.

Using standard weather map symbols from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a bingo card generator from a website called ESL Activities I created 35 unique Weather Map Symbols Bingo cards. View and download the set at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Incoming sixth graders think they love science; but what many of them really love is the elation they feel when observing the reaction between vinegar and baking soda as it foams out of a model volcano. What can be learned from the vinegar and baking soda model of a volcano? Did the student really not know that magma comes out of a volcano?

The “wow” factor in science education is fine, but students need to understand that science is not all bells and whistles. Science education needs to provide students the opportunity to develop abstractions of natural phenomena, and to test and revise their abstractions until they can learn something new about the actual phenomena. You just can’t get there with a classic model volcano.

I am excited for this school year; another opportunity to help my students more fully understand the nature of science.

If the novelty of technology is exploited as a method for engagement, the student is predestined to disengage as the novel moves to the norm.