Scoop.It

I am constantly on the lookout for useful websites when it comes to education and science. My most recent favorite is Scoop.It which allows you to bookmark sites in a magazine format. As a Twitter-lover I am a big fan of Scoop.It. You can follow topics such as "Science Education" or "Inquiry-Based Learning" or if you're looking for a personal bookmarking site it's great for that too.

You can check out my page here.

Keep it up for your PLC (Professional Learning Community).

Yesterday the Astronomy class I am working with was covering the phases of the moon. I suspect that a lot of people in society don't really understand why we have phases of the moon. Contrary to popular belief it is not the Earth blocking out sunlight from the moon. In fact, it is just where the moon is in relation to the sun and the Earth. Basically, half of the moon is always light and half is dark, there are phases because from our vantage point on Earth we see only a certain amount of the light or dark sides at any given time. To get a visual:

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Notice in the inner circle each moon is half lit by the sunlight (coming from the right side of the picture). You can see the phases we see at each location of the moon though. This is a good time to clear up any misconceptions your students have about the moon!

Faculty In-Service

Yesterday I went to my first faculty in-service. Basically for the students it was a day off from school and faculty all had a PD day. All the teachers in the county went to a local high school and went to different sessions throughout the day. My schedule consisted of one 'just for fun' class (glass blowing) and classes in differentiation, technology, working with students who have emotional disorders, tree identification (hello science teachers!) and the new teacher evaluation model. All in all it was a great experience for me as a first timer. It was very nice to meet so many other teachers in the county too.