Madison Niemiec's Elementary Science Methods Blog

       This week in lab I was able to relate my past elementary school knowledge of living things and nonliving things to my more advanced knowledge today. I was able to remember what constituted a living thing as living because it has cells. However, today in class, it is even more clear why a living thing is constituted as it is. It was a great refresh to go over the characteristics of living things and really understand why these are so important. Also, I think that our debate using the argumentation was a great refresh on the three parts of it. I remembered so vividly from school-age but it was good to get a fresh foundation! Today in lab we made an Anchor Chart of the characteristics of living things. I want to incorporate Anchor Charts for my students for science subjects throughout the year because I think that these show the foundations of what the topic is each unit/theme. I think that with the help of words and pictures - ideas become much more clear and le...

  1. This week in Lab I learned and was reminded of the difference between how we learn science, and topics that this is applied to. We went over how to learn science like experiential learning, researching, inquiry, modeling, and more! Then I realized learning topics like weather, biology patterns, the life cycle are all topics that can be learned through the "how"! 2. A part of Lab today that I found confusing are the different components of NGSS and the performance expectations, three dimensions and what all the different coding means. I did not know what NGSS was until today, so I have a lot of learning to do when it comes to all of the different aspects of this resource. 3. Today, I learned and was inspired by Dr. You and my peers to continue to learn and have a new mindset on science to keep learning and allowing my students to express their learning in different ways. I learned a lot about modeling today and inquiry going hand in hand to work together for science. I wa...