FCAT Science

Teach­ers were actively engaged in the learn­ing process as they con­ducted hands-on-minds-on, inquiry-based inves­ti­ga­tions to explore FCAT sci­ence con­tent and con­cepts. I began the work­shop with hav­ing teach­ers dis­cuss how they help to develop and strengthen crit­i­cal think­ing skills in their stu­dents. Teach­ers con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore the nature of mat­ter, phys­i­cal sci­ence, earth and life sci­ence con­cepts. It was a great group of teach­ers, and fan­tas­tic Cen­tral Florida school. I expect great strides in the sci­ence class­room from this group of moti­vated teach­ers and their students.

I’ve been con­duct­ing full-day teacher train­ing work­shops for the past two weeks at a quaint beach­side ele­men­tary school located in Volu­sia county, Florida. The six hour work­shops are con­ducted for spe­cific grade lev­els, align­ing with their cur­ricu­lum maps for the last 9 weeks of the 2009–2010 school year. The fol­low­ing pho­tos were taken from the 4th and 5th grade teacher ses­sions. Dur­ing the work­shop teach­ers con­ducted numer­ous inquiry-based hands-on sci­ence inves­ti­ga­tions to explore life sci­ence con­cepts. Teach­ers recorded notes, obser­va­tions, and attached spec­i­mens in their inter­ac­tive stu­dent note­books. Inves­ti­ga­tions made con­nec­tions to the Big Ideas 14–17 from Florida’s Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards. The teach­ers left the work­shop revi­tal­ized, ener­gized, and excited about explor­ing life sci­ence con­cepts with their stu­dents. Great group of teach­ers, and an exam­ple of a  school that has placed empha­sis on the impor­tance of con­duct­ing mean­ing­ful sci­ence with their stu­dents. Dur­ing the teacher train­ing work­shop teach­ers con­ducted the fol­low­ing investigations:

• Con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore clas­si­fi­ca­tion con­cepts (animal)
• Con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore clas­si­fi­ca­tion con­cepts (plant)
• Con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore life cycles within the plant and ani­mal kingdoms
• Con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to com­pare and con­trast among the plant and ani­mal kingdoms
• Designed and con­structed a model of a plant or ani­mal cell using a ziplock bag filled with Karo Syrup (rep­re­sents cyto­plasm), with addi­tional mate­ri­als placed within the bag to rep­re­sent the cell organelles.
• Designed and con­structed a class­room ter­rar­ium rep­re­sent­ing a com­plete ecosys­tem (gar­den snails, pill bugs, earth­worms, bird seed, soil, water, and decay­ing plant mate­r­ial were placed inside aquar­i­ums). Con­cepts cov­ered included: inter­de­pen­dence, ecol­ogy, envi­ron­ment, food web, com­mu­nity, sun, energy, energy trans­for­ma­tion, pro­duc­ers, con­sumers, and decomposers.
• The key con­cept inte­grated within all inves­ti­ga­tions under­taken was struc­ture and func­tion in the plant and ani­mal kingdoms.

Teacher uses a micro­scope to observe pond water organisms.

Teacher builds model plant cell from sim­ple house­hold materials.Cell model lab sheet used in mak­ing model of plant and ani­mal cell.

Teach­ers used inter­ac­tive stu­dent jour­nals dur­ing teacher train­ing workshop.

Teacher builds class­room ter­rar­ium to teach about life sci­ence concepts.

Teach­ers stud­ied the Hibis­cus plants as well as the ani­mals that live on or near the Hibis­cus plants.