March 5, 2015 by Adam

Episode 14: Science Fair Presentation Day

In this episode I share how I set up my Science Fair presentation day. I explain how students were organized to give their presentations and how I assessed them. I also reflect on how the presentations went and the ups and downs of the results. Finally, I describe how I conform my non-traditional Science Fair methods to the demands of the district level Science Fair.

Check out the resources below:

Assessment grid for Science Fair presentations

Student peer assessment rubric (Gdoc, PDF)

February 19, 2015 by Adam

Episode 12: Science and Literacy – Writing Conclusions and Abstracts for Science Fair

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Sciencewriting

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This is where the rubber meets the road. Can students determine the validity of their hypotheses? Listen to hear how I coach students in scientific thinking AND writing as they write up their conclusions to their Science Fair projects. Also hear how I guide my students to writing an Abstract which they use to summarize their entire experimental process. Also, hear how the awesome Language Arts teachers on my team interdisciplinized the Science Fair by creating an independent reading list which students used to contextualize their project in their writing. This has proven especially useful given the new emphasis on the Common Core and literacy across the curriculum.

Links:

Conclusion Directions and Rubric (Gdoc) (PDF)

Abstract Directions and Rubric (Gdoc) (PDF)

Final Paper Directions (Gdoc) (PDF)

February 12, 2015 by Adam

Episode 11: Teaching Math in Science

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Science Fair is an excellent opportunity to build math skills into your Science class. In this episode, I detail how I guided students in organizing their data into presentable form. I used tutorial videos to help students develop 21^st century cloud based data analysis skills. Listen to hear how students researched graph types, selected the most appropriate graph and turned it all into a document that could later be used in a final science fair report.

Video Tutorials:

Making a graph using your Google drive

Inserting a Google graph into a Google document

Instructions and Resources

Organizing Data (Gdoc) (PDF)

Creating a Science Fair Graph (Gdoc)(PDF)

Results and Reflection Writing (Gdoc)(PDF)

Data and Results Rubric (Gdoc)(PDF)

February 5, 2015 by Adam

Episode 10: Analyzing Science Fair Data with Students, part 2

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In this episode I continue to share my experiences with students in organizing and graphing their data. I discuss the methods for taking all their data and displaying it in a single table. In addition, I outline how students gain expertise on graph types and decide what type of graph to use for their data. Click the links below to download copies of materials I used with my students.

Organizing Data (Gdoc) (PDF)

Creating a Science Fair Graph (Gdoc)(PDF)

Results and Reflection Writing (Gdoc)(PDF)

Data and Results Rubric (Gdoc)(PDF)

January 8, 2015 by Adam

Episode 9: Analyzing Science Fair Data with Students, part 1

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Analyzing data always presents challenges for students. In this episode, I discuss how I approached data analysis with my students. Hear about the hangups we ran into and how the activity unfolded in my classroom.

November 24, 2014 by Adam

Episode 7: Science Fair Goes to Humanities – Working With Colleagues, part 1

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How Our Humanities Teacher Helped Make Science Fair Rock!

The awesome Lillie Marshal, 7th grade Humanities teacher joins for this episode of the podcast. She shares how she welcomed Science Fair into her classroom and curriculum and how she used it to teach research concepts. Listen to hear how to work with colleagues to “interdisciplinize” your Science Fair.

Lillie is also an incredible blogger in her own right. She publishes aroundtheworldL.com, a travel blog. She also publishes teachingtraveling.com, a travel web site for teachers.

November 16, 2014 by Adam

My Science Fair Book Cover Has Arrived!

I’m super psyched to announce the arrival of the cover for my book, “Why Science Fair Sucks and How You Can Save It.” The cover is off to the formatter and should be available on Amazon.com with in a week or two. Thank you so much to Dave Fymbo at limelightbookcovers.com for all his design work.

Interested in finding out the moment the book is for sale? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here or fill out the form on the right side of this page.

November 14, 2014 by Adam

Science Fair Podcast Episode #6: Making an Observation Protocol for Science Fair

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In Episode six, I reveal how students went about crating an observation protocol. They know that they are trying to find the affect their trash item has on the growth of plants. But what do they mean by growth? There are many ways in which a plant grows. I’ll explain how I engaged students to create a protocol for what they will measure and how they’ll go about doing it.

November 8, 2014 by Adam

Science Fair Podcast Episode #5: Setting Up Science Fair Experiments

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In episode 5, I describe how my students put their procedures into action. I detail how students self pace the activity and how I offer tailored support. I also discuss how I have my students reflect on the process to revise their experimental procedures. Below are links to the web based resources mentioned in the episode.

Reflection

Critical Thinking Rubric (This is a rubric created by my school and used across the grades)

November 6, 2014 by Adam

Science Fair Podcast Episode #4: Writing Experimental Procedures

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Want to know why I do Science Fair in this unusual way? I start this episode with a brief outline of how I do science fair and why. Then I go into how I lead students in writing procedures to test their hypotheses.