Free Science Resources for Your Interactive Whiteboard

1. Photosynthesis Animation - A great animation that teachers can play/pause/replay to show what plants need to carry out photosynthesis. Use in a lesson on plants or food chains.

2. Levels of the Food Chain SMART Notebook File - Teach your students about producers and consumers and where they fit on the food chain. Includes interactive Flash animations that make for engaging assessments.

3. Properties of Light SMART Notebook File - Teach students about reflection, refraction, and transmission of light with this interactive Notebook file. Included are Flash animations that can supplement or even take the place of hands-on science activities.

4. Clouds Gallery Collection File - These mini-movies describe the weather which accompanies cumulus, cumulonimbus, cirrus, and stratus clouds. Display them on your interactive whiteboard so that your students can observe the cloud's appearance and then click the INFORMATION button to learn more about each cloud. Interactive flashcards!

5. Refraction in Prism Collection File - This animation shows light passing through a triangular prism. Your student can see the light refract inside and then separate into the colors of the spectrum.

More Science Activities | Math Whiteboard Teacher Pack Bundle

Free Interactive Whiteboard Resources @ Misterteacher.com

Take advantage of the free resources for your interactive whiteboard at MisterTeacher.com:

• Math Facts Flip Chart - This virtual manipulative is now free! A great resource for teaching addition, subtraction, multiplication, & division facts. This tool works just like a modular flip chart and is perfect for whole-class demonstrations, small group work, or learning center practice. Push the submit button for instant feedback.
  

• Fractions Flip Chart - This virtual manipulative is now free! Display this resource on your interactive whiteboard and show your students fractional parts of a circle, fractions, decimals and percents. Push the submit button for instant feedback.

• Alphabet Symmetry Tool - The ultimate tool for teaching transformations! Display this resource on your interactive whiteboard and use letters of the alphabet to teach linear and rotational symmetry as well as reflections, rotations, and translations.

• Interactive Food Chains & Webs - Eight awesome Flash mini-movies teach your students the organization of simple food chains & food webs. Get your students out of their seats and up to the whiteboard!
  

All of our WebQuests & student activities are free:

Alphabet Geometry | Symmetry in Nature

Properties of Light | Forces

Constitution WebQuest | Slavery in America

Technorati Tags: education | Smartboard | Interactive Whiteboard

New Science Whiteboard Teacher Packs

While nothing can replace a hands-on science classroom, using science animations on an interactive whiteboard can certainly come close. In the weeks ahead, misterteacher.com will be releasing several Science Whiteboard Teacher Packs. Each teacher pack consists of activities that are highly interactive and are meant to supplement your hands-on science activities.

Teach about the properties of light with misterteacher's first science Whiteboard Teacher Pack release. Your students can shine a flashlight off of a mirror to learn about the law of reflection. You can teach refraction, or the bending of light, by with a refraction block animation. Drag the flashlight from right to left and watch the light bend inside the block. Finally, students will understand the difference between transparent, translucent, and opaque materials by dragging three different lenses in the transmission of light mini-movie.

There are several more mini-movies in the properties of light teacher pack. In addition, you'll find a teacher's guide and printable assessments. Click here to check it out.

Check out MisterTeacher.com's SMART Accredited Math Whiteboard Teacher Packs

• Transformations - Reflections, Rotations, Translations
• Decimals - Models, comparing, and ordering
• Geometry - Lines, angles, and circles
• Fractions - Models, comparing, and ordering
• Integers - Models, comparing, and ordering
• Dominoes - Addition, subtraction, and family of facts

New Virtual Manipulatives for Math Teachers

Virtual Manipulatives

Incorporate even more interactivity into your math lessons with new virtual manipulatives at MisterTeacher.com. Teachers can find a set of ten new manipulatives created for students grades K-12. Each one is designed to be projected onto an interactive whiteboard and shared with small or large groups of students. Included are a coin tool, the interactive angle, a tangram tool, and more.

Click here to check out the virtual manipulatives.

New Science Mini-Movies Added to the Library

Now you can engage your students in learning about clouds, electricity, photosynthesis, prisms, and more. New science mini-movies allow you teach:

• four types of clouds and the type of weather they produce
• about electric circuits
• how a plant creates food through photosynthesis
• how a prism bends light

Check out the science mini-movie library

Interactive Whiteboard Teacher Packs

The 2010-11 school year is here. Enhance your interactive whiteboard lessons with MisterTeacher’s new Interactive Whiteboard Teacher Packs. These new teacher packs feature highly engaging resources to include in your lessons combined with new guides on how to use them:

• Flash Animated Interactive Whiteboard Mini-Movies
• A Teacher's Guide Full of Engaging Ideas for Using the Mini-Movies on Your Interactive Whiteboard
• Printable Worksheets that Help You Assess the Concepts You Will Be Teaching with the Mini-Movies

The library of teacher packs is growing and will soon cover concepts spanning all grade levels in both math and science. Here's what currently on the site:

• Basics of Geometry Whiteboard Teacher Pack
• Decimals Whiteboard Teacher Pack
• Circle Geometry Whiteboard Teacher Pack
• Integers Whiteboard Teacher Pack
• Adding with Dominoes Whiteboard Teacher Pack
• Fractions Whiteboard Teacher Pack
• Circles and Stars Whiteboard Teacher Pack

In addition, there are more math and science themed interactive whiteboard mini-movies that are not yet part of teacher packs. A portion of them are available as free downloads. Click here to check out all the Whiteboard Teacher Packs

Don’t forget about MisterTeacher’s web-based student activities: science, social studies, and math activities for elementary through middle grades students.

Geometry Lessons | Science Lessons | Social Studies Lessons

A Few Interesting Math and Science Apps for Mobile Phones

Figuratively speaking, the world we live in has been cut down to size, thanks largely to the extensive reach that the tiny mobile phone has allowed us. With this small device, it is now possible to do just about anything – communicate, entertain, learn – the list is endless. The more sophisticated of this breed, the smartphones, are even more convenient as all-in-one tools because they have operating systems that allow you to use them similar to computers. So if you own one of these gadgets and are on the lookout for interesting math and science apps to try out, here is a compilation of a few apps that I think are useful:

For the iPhone:

• Get all the Science: If you’re a regular subscriber to the RSS feeds of major science publications online, then this is the app for you. It brings pages from websites like Nature, New Scientist, and others and displays them on your phone for your convenience.
• Uranus: This app is GPS-enabled and allows you to view information about the night sky from any place on earth.
• Scientific Calculator: You don’t have to shell out money any longer for a scientific calculator; just download this free app onto your iPhone.
• Pi Cubed: I love mathematics, so this app had me really excited – it allows you to actually use your iPhone’s screen as a notepad on which you can do Math equations. The interface supports animation and touch input, so it’s easy to enter and delete numbers and symbols.

For the Android:

• Elements: An easy ready reckoner for the periodic table, this app helps you look up not just the names of elements and their atomic numbers, but also their melting points, atomic radii and more.
• HandyCalc: A good scientific calculator app written for the Android OS.
• SciencePal: This app allows you to access information not just about the periodic table, but also about scientific constants, the solar system, and nuclides.

For the BlackBerry:

• Math Trainer: This app is both fun and informative for kids and adults; it allows you to practice basic mathematics in three modes – exam, timed and training.
• Viigo: This app is basically an RSS aggregator, but you can set it to read all the science blogs and sites that you’re passionate about so you stay on top of all the latest news.

For Windows Mobile:

• SpaceTime Mathematics: This app is probably the most advanced mathematical and scientific calculator in the mobile world; it includes features for plotting, symbolic calculus and scripting besides other functions.
• Calc Pro: Another basic math-based app for Windows Mobile phones, this features options for graphing, financial calculations, standard computations, unit conversions, statistical calculations, and much more.

There are many other science and math apps for mobile devices, most of them having been written for the iPhone for obvious reasons, but the Android is soon catching up as a popular OS. So no matter what the brand of your device, you’ll be able to find suitable apps.

This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees . She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com

Check out: Interactive Whiteboard Mini-Movies - Flash Animations for your Interactive Whiteboard

Stellarium: A Realistic Sky in 3D

If you have been looking for an easy way to teach astronomy to your students, Stellarium is the answer. This open source software turns your classroom into a planetarium by displaying a realistic 3D sky on your interactive whiteboard. Stellarium can also be used with a computer and projector.

The Stellarium program was created by Fabien Chereau, a French research engineer and computer programmer. It can be downloaded for free by anyone and allows users to input their individual coordinates so the displayed sky is as realistic as possible.

Planets, major moons, and more than 600,000 stars can be viewed with Stellarium. The program also displays constellations from ten cultures and realistic images of the atmosphere, sunrise, and sunset. In short, you can see everything that you can and can't see with your naked eye or telescope.

Stellarium is such a good program that there are several planetariums around the country that use it on their projectors. The best part about it, other than the fact that it is free, is that it is simple to use. Stellarium works on virtually any platform (Windows, Mac, and Linux) and provides an easy-to-use interface that allows you to zoom, choose projection options, and control what your students see. The program also has a record feature that allows you to play back shows at a later date.

If you do have any problems with Stellarium, you can consult the extensive user guide or get answers to your questions on a special forum set up specifically for this purpose. You can also make suggestions on the Stellarium site to help improve the program and influence future updates.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online school for OnlineSchool.net.

Technorati Tags: Stellarium | stars | astronomy

More Science Resources: Thermal Energy | Properties of Light | Forces

New (& Improved) Math & Science SmartBoard Mini-Movies

New Drag and Drop Graphs

I'm very excited to announce three new amazing mini-movies that will allow teachers to really engage their students in lessons on representing data. With these mini-movies, you'll be able to dynamically create three types of graphs: a bar graph, a line graph, and a circle graph. Input your own data into a table, press DONE, and then have your students come to the interactive whiteboard and drag bars, lines, and pie pieces into the correct spots. Once they are finished, have them click the CHECK button to get immediate feedback.

You'll find these new drag and drop graphs in the math mini-movies section of misterteacher.com.

Updated Basics of Geometry Resources

Check out the new basics of geometry student activities. These interactive activities feature play and pause SmartBoard mini-movies that allow students to learn the concepts at their own pace. The mini-movies are also perfect for downloading and using in your interactive whiteboard lessons.

• Lines
• Line Segments
• Rays
• Parallel Lines
• Transversals
• Perpendicular
• Intersections

Life Science - Drag and drop food webs and food chains

The newest additions to the science mini-movie library are drag and drop food webs and chains. Teach your students about the flow of energy through a food chain as well as the meaning of words like producer, consumer, herbivore, and carnivore by having them drag organisms to the correct place on the food chains and webs.

• Food Chain 1
• Food Chain 2
• Yellowstone Food Web
• Aquatic Food Web

Celebrate African American Heritage

Teach your students about the experiences and contributions of African Americans slaves with the web-based unit Slavery in America from misterteacher.com. Each page is printable, making it easy to teach your students about the lives of slaves, negro spirituals, the Underground Railroad, and how African Americans eventually got their freedom.

Bugscope: Exploring the Microscopic World of Insects

Imaging Technology Group, an association of imaging specialists and microscopists at the University of Illinois' Beckman Institute, has found a way to make collecting bugs for a school project more interesting than ever before. The group created a special project known asBugscope for K-12 students. Bugscope provides classrooms with free access to a scanning electron microscope (SEM) that can be used to study insect specimens at high-magnification.

What's cool about the Bugscope project is that it is available to everyone in the world. The SEM isn't brought into the classroom. Instead, the classroom is brought to the SEM through a live one-hour web session. During the session, students have full control over the interactive microscope. They can magnify, adjust contrast and brightness, control the focus, and explore preset views setup by the Bugscope team.

Bugscope sessions can be displayed on multiple computers, projectors, and interactive whiteboards. Only one user can operate the microscope at a time, but students can login and view the session on up to 20 different computers at once.

The Bugscope team, which includes several microscopists and an entomology student, are available online via instant messaging so that students can ask questions throughout the session. When the session ends, images and chats are saved and can be viewed later by both students and teachers.

Scheduling a Bugscope Session

There is no cost to participate in a Bugscope session. However, you must schedule a session prior to participation. You can do this by filling out the application form on the Bugscope site. If you are interested in seeing how a Bugscope session works before you apply, you can login as a guest and view an upcoming Bugscope session.

Once your application has been accepted, you can setup a Bugscope session and mail in the specimens you want your class to examine (That's right--it's up to you to send in the bugs!) The Bugscope team will then schedule a demo that allows you to get a feel for the microscope controls before the actual session begins.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degrees for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

New Drag and Drop Mini-Movies on misterteacher.com

As of this mailing, there are over 300 subscribers to the misterteacher.com newsletter. If each of the current subscribers were to send this email to just one more educator that list would grow to over 600! Please take a few seconds and share the site with someone who may benefit from using the resources.

New Drag and Drag Drops

The majority of the SMARTBoard mini-movies on misterteacher.com are defined by their simple interactivity. Push a button and watch a concept come alive through animation. It's time to introduce a new generation of interactivity: drag and drop mini-movies. These new animations allow teachers and their students to drag multiple items across the screen of an electronic whiteboard, push a button, and get instant feedback.

In the weeks and months ahead, watch out for tons of math and science drag and drops (food webs and some AWESOME DRAG AND DROP GRAPHS!). Right now though, check out a few examples from the first bunch that has been added to the site:

• Ordering Decimals
• Ordering Fractions
• Ordering Integers

By the way, if you're planning to teach fractions and decimals soon, there are almost 30 new mini-movies on comparing and ordering fractions and decimals. Also, there are several new worksheets:

• Finding the Circumference Practice Page
• Classifying Triangles Lesson
• Classifying Quadrilaterals Lesson

Coming up in the weeks ahead:

• A SchoolTube movie that tells how to use the mini-movies in the classroom.
• More Worksheets
• More and more drag and drop mini-movies.

Science Resources: Science Mini-Movies Properties of Light Thermal Energy Forces

Social Studies Resources: Slavery in America Waves of Immigration Constitution WebQuest

New Teaching Resources for September

Student Activities

Several new student activities have been added since the last update. Teachers can find a set of three activities that will help students learn how to represent and compare integers and determine absolute value. How many computer-generated arithmetic problems can your students answer in 60 seconds? Arithmattac
k is a new math resource on misterteacher.com that teachers can use for drilling math facts.


A number of science activities have been added as well. First, there is a set of activities that teach students about thermal energy and temperature. Next, students will be able to define reflection and refraction after completing activities on the properties of light. Finally, activities on forces will teach your students about contact and non-contact forces like air resistance, gravity, magnetism, and friction.

Resources to Become a Teacher

There are many programs on the Internet that offer education degrees online. You can attend classes from your own home and work at your own pace. This is a decent alternative to going to a campus university for your teaching degree.

SMARTBoard Mini-movies


There are few new SMARTBoard mini-movies for math teachers. You can find one on parallel lines and two on parallelograms: one that shows congruent angles and one that shows congruent sides. Two new probability mini-movies are now up: coin flip and roll of the dice.

I've added a K-2 section to the library. Here you'll find mini-movies on recognizing patterns, addition and subtraction, and adding doubles. The
re will be many more mini-movies to come for this section.


There are four new science mini-movies, all on the topic of simple machines. Teach your students about the three classes of levers with two simple animations. Also, be sure to download both inclined plane movies to teach about the relationship between length and effort force.

COMING SOON! More mini-movies on K-2 math concepts, probability, and patterns (more advanced).




If you like the resources on misterteacher.com please share this post.

Please help me improve the resources on misterteacher.com. I welcome feedback and I do take suggestions on content that you would like to see as a mini-movie or student activity. Email Jamie Tubbs.




Check out: Everything Geometry Alphabet Geometry Social Studies Resources

Teaching Big Ideas

I've been thinking for a while now about how important it is to teach big ideas. When I speak of big ideas, I'm referring to the enduring concepts that transcend grade level and subject area. Throughout each subject area--science, math, social studies, and language arts--it's possible to take several content standards and group them into a theme-based unit, supporting the learning of a big idea (and creating a highly engaging project-based learning experience).

One of the big ideas that comes to mind is photosynthesis. It's probably not a stretch to say that most elementary educators don't give photosynthesis its due. All the way up to last year, I sure didn't. But consider all of the science concepts connected to what is easily the most important process on Earth, and its significance as a big idea becomes easy to grasp. (Don't believe me? Check out the book Eating the Sun by Oliver Morton). Consider that food chains begin with plants and they get their energy from photosynthesis. The fall leaf change occurs because leaves stop the process of photosynthesis and begin to lose their chlorophyll. Of course, this takes place because of changes in the hours of daylight which means you can teach about Earth's orbit around the sun and its effect on the seasons.

In social studies, westward expansion/progress is a theme that necessitates the teaching of several other big ideas: changes in transportation, settlement, treatment of Native Americans, exploration, the Gold Rush, Oregon Trail, etc. Because they fall under the umbrella of westward expansion, you can teach all of these concepts as part of a theme-based unit and have students create a nice project at the end.

So what are some other big ideas that you think are important to teach? Here's a list that I thought of with some of the other concepts that are connected to them:

• Scientific Inquiry (scientific method, developing experiments, identifying variables, scientific communication)
• Resources (renewable energy, fossil fuels, design process (have kids build wind turbines), earth science)
• Tessellations (polygons (interior angle measures), regular polygons, similarity, symmetry (transformations)
• Patterns & Functions
• Fractals (multiplying fractions, similarity, patterns, functions)
  
• Rivers (transportation, growth of civilizations, growth of cities & economies)

Technorati Tags: education| learning | teachers

Check out: Symmetry in Nature | Alphabet Geometry

Smartboard and Inspiration: A Perfect Match

Do you have a SmartBoard? Do you use graphic organizers? Want to combine the two? Then it's time to begin using Inspiration on your SmartBoard. If you want to see student engagement soar (even for a lesson involving the interactivity of a whiteboard), open up Inspiration and have your students create a bubble map (as they are known to my kids).

During my first years of teaching, Inspiration was a tool that I used all the time. Over the past few years I rarely used it at all. Last year I switched to a room with a SmartBoard and rediscovered the program. Not only does it engage my students, but it forces them to think and apply their learning. Below is a completed example of a concept map that my math students made on measurement. It was not this neat when I first projected it. The bubbles were scattered across the screen and there were no connections. Over the course of about 15 minutes, my students came to the SmartBoard, organized it, and made the connections. There were some mistakes and it was pretty cool to watch the kids correct them.


In science, I had my students construct a complex food web with a dozen animals. I'm not going to post it here because I took all of the photos from the Internet (you can copy and paste photos to your maps), but below you'll see an example of a food web made with the program:

Check out the Inspiration website and download the 30-Day trial. The site is also full of lesson plans and other resources.


Check out: Alphabet Symmetry | Waves of Immigration | Slavery in America

Technorati Tags: education| learning | Inspiration | technology

2 Bright Ideas for the Science Classroom

1. Have your students make their own nature films - Wildlife Filmmaker is a cool toy from National Geographic that allows users to make a nature film complete with animal clips, sounds, music, and more. It's easy to use and doesn't take too long. Your kids should be able to make a movie in as little as two class periods.

2. Check out the Killer Clips at animalplanet.com - Sink your teeth into some of the wildest video on the planet. Then get the Killer Clips widget and embed the videos into your website (see below).

Click here for 8 more bright ideas for the science classroom.

The Federation of Gallery Explorers

Here's one for the science teachers. The Federation of Galaxy Explorers seeks to inspire and educate kids in space related science and engineering. Galaxy Explorers was created to prepare children for the future; a future that advances a space faring civilization. Kids in Galaxy Explorers attend after-school (or evening) monthly "Mission Team" meetings and periodic field trips. Adult volunteers teach Galaxy Explorers with easy to understand and fun-to-do educational material to provide a hands-on understanding of space science, earth science, engineering, and rocketry.

Members have access to a number of free resources: space suits, meteorite collections, GPS units, science equipment, telescopes, rocketry equipment, etc. They also offer free tours and training (given by NASA and Air Force space professionals) to teachers and Mission Team Leaders.

Check out this nonprofit company's website for more information AND dozens of free lesson plans.

Check out: Tessellations | Rainforest Webquest | Teaching about Photosynthesis

Fall is a Great Time to Teach About Photosynthesis

With the change of season comes less daylight. Less daylight results in the fall color change for trees. This makes a great time to teach your students about how plants use sunlight to change water and carbon dioxide into glucose through photosynthesis. Fall is an excellent time because it allows teachers to put the process into a context that the kids will likely remember.

Being able to explain why a leaf changes from green to yellow (or any other color) requires knowledge of how plants capture sunlight (they use the pigment chlorophyll). Since this is the case, why not just teach the whole process? Below is a list of links that I've gathered that explain why leaves change colors in the fall.

• Kidszone - Autumn Leaves - Simplified explanation for younger kids.
  
• Science Made Simple - Why do Leaves Change Color in the Fall? -
  
• The Miracle of Fall - A collection of links for teaching about the changing of leaves
• Leaf color change animation - Watch a leaf change from green to yellow from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31
• Foliage Network - The Foliage Network was developed to provide accurate foliage information for various locations across the United States.

I've also added a new page to misterteacher.com complete with resources if you're planning on taking your class into nature.

education, teachers, learning,