Ecology Unit Activities 2

You can check out the other ecology unit activities that I shared by clicking here.

Collaborative Posters: Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles
Students worked in groups of 3-4 to complete a collaborative poster over the carbon or nitrogen cycle.  I allowed them to choose one after they had completed a small group reading together over each cycle.  

Students had to work together to create a visual representation based off of what they read; as I had not specifically taught the concept yet and wanted to see what they could learn/pull from the reading.  If you're not familiar with collaborative posters, you can check out a post I wrote back in 2013, here.

Ecological Succession Story and Illustration
Students participated in a small group collaborative reading and then had to use information from what they read to illustrate the stages of succession. 

Ecology Task Cards
I ended the unit with the use of ecology task cards as a cumulative activity to help students connect concepts and to review what they had learned about during the past few days. 

Left-side Interactive Notebook Activities: 
Ecology Acrostic and 1 page narrative
Students utilized their interactive notebooks throughout the unit.  Two ways that I had students demonstrate their understanding were through the use of an acrostic and a 1-page narrative from the perspective an another organism (e.g. animal, plant, bacteria, etc.)

The example above does contain mistakes (spelling/grammar); however, the student appropriately completed the acrostic based on the rubric that was provided. 

 "I have...Who has..." Review 
I actually had the students play "I have...Who has..." right before they took the exam as it reviewed the academic vocabulary and various concepts.

I hope you enjoyed reading and viewing the pictures about a few of the things I used during my ecology unit.  

Share your ideas for how you engage and motivate students when teaching ecology in the comment section below! 

Ecology Unit Activities 1

I just ended a unit over ecology and wanted to share a few of the activities and stations that I had my students complete as they were learning about the concept.  There is a link to additional activities at the end of this post. 

Levels of Organization Gallery Walk
This station had 17 cards covering the levels of organization (LOO).  While I was covering ecological LOO, I had also covered LOO in organisms and wanted to review previous terms.  Therefore, there cards contained images covering the following terms:

• atoms, molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organ, organ systems, organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome, and biosphere. 

Each card had a term that briefly described to students what they were observing.  Students carried a stations sheet where they identified the LOO and whether each card depicted biotic factors and/or abiotic factors. 

Symbiosis Scenarios
This particular station contained 12 different symbiotic relationship scenarios.  Students only had to complete four cards, however, they had to pick one example of each type of symbiotic relationship.

Biome Energy Flow (Food Chain & Food Web) 
This station had 6 different versions, as I had incorporated various biomes (e.g. deserts, forests, etc.) and allowed students to choose one energy flow station. 

Students had to create 3 food chains and 1 food web using a specific number of cards. Out of all the stations, this was the most popular station among the students.  This particular activity may be found by clicking here.

I hope you enjoyed reading and viewing the pictures about a few of the things I used during my ecology unit. You can check out the other ecology unit activities that I shared by clicking here.

Share your ideas for how you engage and motivate students when teaching ecology in the comment section below! 

Classroom Management: Restroom Strategy for Secondary Students

Hi everyone! After my first year of teaching, I reflected on the things that went well and all the things that needed to change in order to help me survive in the wonderful, yet challenging, life of being a teacher.  

One of the things that I felt I could change and manage was how I allowed students to leave my classroom.  In the video, I share my hall ticket strategy that helps me control the number of students that leave my classroom during a grading cycle.

I failed to mention two things in the video. The first is that I do not allow students to loan passes to their peers.  The second thing is that I provide opportunities for students to earn additional tickets. Students may earn these through peer assistance (i.e., not just telling answers but actually tutoring), consistent on-task behavior, or during in-class assessment reviews.

Remember: Be consistent.  

Free, editable templates are provided if you're interested in trying this strategy now or in the future. Feel free to comment on this post or in the video comment section on YouTube if you have a question or a comment and I'll do my best to get back to you!

Back-to-School Season

Back-to-School season is in full effect. For the past few weeks, I have been transitioning into my new classroom; as well looking around for great deals and loading up my shopping cart with school supplies for the new school year. 

Even with all the great deals out there, it can add up quickly. I am personally giving away $35 worth of secondary science resources, to two lucky winners, from my Teachers Pay Teachers store, Bond with James.  The methods to win will be shown in the Rafflecopter below. 

A few of my resources include:
1. High School Chemistry Bundle for Interactive Notebooks - which contains 7 topics and includes the gradual release model (I do, We do, You do) in the note taking process.
2. Chemistry Task Cards Series 9-in-1 Bundle - currently includes 459 task cards with answer keys and student answer sheets. 
3. Cells and Viruses for the Biology Interactive Notebook -  contains various graphic organizers, readings, and other activities covering cells and viruses. 
4. Food Chain and Food Web: Biome Card Sort Bundle - contains 6 different interactive biome card sorts. 

Please note that the winners will be contacted and must tell me which items the would like to select as I will not be providing gift cards.
a Rafflecopter giveaway


We have put together a BIG Blog Hop Giveaway: Four $100 Teachers Pay Teachers gift cards. Each blog post has a secret code word and number. The number tells you where the word falls in the secret sentence. My code word is: tomorrow's (11).  Make sure to collect the words from each blog, write them down in numbered order, and copy the secret sentence into the joint rafflecopter giveaway. This form is the same on every blog, so you only need to enter it once from any of the participating blogs. 
a Rafflecopter giveaway
After you have entered my Rafflecopter and the secondary science Rafflecopter, make sure to check out each secondary blog at the bottom of this post to enter the other Rafflecopter giveaways.  

An InLinkz Link-up

You can also check out a tour of my classroom!

Twelve Techie Gifts - Day 12: Plickers

Merry Christmas! The final day of Twelve Techie Gifts is upon us and I'm a little excited about sharing the last gift - Plickers.

Plickers is an awesome and fun way to quickly formatively assess your students. If you're familiar with the remote clickers concept, then Plickers is essentially the same thing - only without having to fork over tons of money for the actual clicker remotes and software.  

What you need to get started:

• Go to Plickers.com and create a free account.
• Download the Plickers app onto your phone or tablet device (this is important because using a QR code reader, other scanner, or your phone/tablet camera will not work).
• Visit Plickers.com to select the type of student cards you want and print out them out (see image below). 
• Use your phone or tablet as a scanner and also have Plickers open on your computer screen (if you wish to show the results LIVE to your students). 

If you utilize student interactive notebooks, then you could print out the standard cards (which come 2 cards per sheet). Plickers provides the capability to assign students a card. This prevents having to print out new cards each time. 

Or you can play anonymously and give students new cards each time; however, I recommend creating class rosters and assigning names to gather data about your students. 

Currently, the only question formats are multiple choice or True and False. You can add pictures and choose more than one correct answer. 

The only caution I would add is to avoid laminating the cards as this may interfere with the Plicker scanning app. Plickers does provide a set a special laminated cards, however, there is a cost associated with it.  You could also order cards from Amazon for a reduced fee.  However, the cards will hold up if students place them in a pocketed section in their interactive notebooks as I previously suggested. 

Take a look at Plickers in action. I hope this is something you can utilize for the New Year as you head back into the classroom refresh and revitalized.  Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays!

Twelve Techie Gifts - Day 11: Smore

Smore is a free program that allows you to create classroom newsletters.  This is a great service, especially if you're interested in getting classroom information out to students, parents, and/or the rest of your school's community.  There are various selections you can choose from to enhance your newsletters - including pictures, videos, audio, and links.  Additionally, you can easily drag and drop the components within your newsletter to the areas you like. Smore is easy to use and a great way to showcase all the excitement and learning that occurs in your classroom on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Twelve Techie Gifts - Day 10: Google Slides

Google Slides is another tool located in the Google Drive.  You will need a Gmail account in order to access the Google Drive application. Google Slides is similar to Microsoft PowerPoint.  Since Google Slides is available through Google Drive, you are able to share your presentation with others. This is a useful feature if you would like to collaborate with other individuals - which may be great for a group of students working together on a project as they can edit and/or make comments on the presentation.