This year's ninth-graders are full of energy and love doing hands-on activities and labs. In addition to our regular education students, we have many students who need accommodations. This includes Special Education students, English Language Learners, inclusion students, and students on IEP's or 504 plans. Many of these students benefit from kinesthetic activities that make scientific phenomena more real to them.
My goal is to give students the best learning opportunities I can through a variety of instructional methods.
I plan many labs but also do other activities to help my students succeed. With the implementation of science and engineering practices in the Earth and Space Science core standards, having authentic learning experiences is more important than ever. Many of these experiences include the use of technology, which I try to incorporate into the classroom whenever possible.
My Project
The spectroscopy lab I currently use needs to be amped up. For this lab, we use diffraction grating lenses and a variety of gasses. I tell them the gas we are looking at and they draw the spectra. While this is fun, having this added piece of technology will allow me to show the students the wavelengths of light along with the colors. The video spectrometer projects the spectrum they also see with their glasses but includes the wavelengths. In addition, instead of telling them the gas that I am showing them, we will be able to use this technology to figure out what the gas is by seeing if the "fingerprint" of the expected spectra matches the spectra we see. The video spectrometer has the capability to overlay the different element signatures over the spectrum we are looking at. We would also be able to explore colors as an extension activity. This would be a much more authentic experience and better complement the science and engineering practices they are learning.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Schulzke and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
