Pangaea and continental drift

Nasa for kids is a website that provides interactive activities that can be used to help make lessons taught more concrete. When teaching the grade eight science unit on plate tectonics and continental drift I would use the following games to encourage learning. I think that a brief lesson using some direst instruction and group discussion would help to jumpstart this topic. After children have some background knowledge on the topic they would be able to try to apply what they know and play the Pangaea map game. This game provides students with a visual of the earths movement and asks that students label the country on the map. Next students would play the Tectonics quiz game. This game asks multiple choice questions to students that will help them to remember key points from the lesson. Students will be more inclined to apply knowledge since it is masked as a game. these games are quick and educational which will help to kepp the attention of the students while they learn.

Grade 8 Science Curriculum

Foundational and learning objectives for Science and the Common Essential Learnings
Understand the concept and theory of drifting continents.
Describe the concept of Pangaea.
Discuss the evidence for the existence of Pangaea.
Consider what forces might cause the continental plates to move .
Investigate the effects produced by moving crustal plates .
Identify regions where plates are colliding, separating, or sliding along each other.
Describe the relationship between the collision or sliding of plates and the occurrence of earthquakes, volcanoes, or mountain building .
Classify rocks according to their source.
Relate the geological history of Saskatchewan to the movement of the North American plate.
Trace the latitude of Saskatchewan through the various geological eras.
Describe how the evidence of fossils and types of rocks are used to infer ancient conditions.
Locate where various types of bedrock are exposed to the surface in Saskatchewan .
Describe how the geological history of Saskatchewan has helped shape the physical, biotic, and human-cultural panorama of Saskatchewan.
Examine the deposition and extraction of potash from sediments of the Devonian period.
Understand and use the vocabulary, structures and forms of expression which characterize the study of earth science. (COM)
Use expressive language to enhance understanding of earth history.
Interpret diagrams, charts, and graphs which supply evidence of plate activity.
Recognize how evidence is interpreted to show the existence of tectonic plates.

Understand how knowledge is created, evaluated, refined and changed within science. (CCT)
Explain how geological evidence is used to interpret the history of the land.
Analyze the development of the personal knowledge of geological history.
Design models and analogies which illustrate understanding of the concepts.

Geometric Shapes

Geometric Shapes - Spatial Learning is a site to use to practice the skills needed in the grade four math curriculum. This web site can be used to accompany the lesson in the classroom using manipulatives to make tanagrams. Students will be able to fllow up their learning in the classroom where they used a hands on approace to solve tanagram puzzles by completing the puzzles on the computer solving the puzzles in a different way. This web site will develope the following areas:
Spatial Sense: Develop an understanding of 2-D shapes and 3-D
objects and the relationships between geometrical shapes and objects,
and numbers and apply this understanding to new situations and
problems.
Development of a strong spatial sense requires students to experience:
• construction and deconstruction of 2-D shapes and 3-D objects
• investigations into relationships between 2-D shapes and 3-D
objects
• explorations of how numbers (and algebra) can be used to
describe 2-D shapes and 3-D objects
• exploration of the movement of 2-D shapes and 3-D objects
• exploration of the dimensions of 2-D shapes and 3-D objects
• exploration of different forms of measurement and their meaning

The students will benifit from the use of this site because they will be able to see math from a different perspective, that being through technology.

Whizzball

I played a game similar to this one before it was called the amazing machine. This game is such a great tool to teach children the concept of machanics and the effecte of forces. I would use this to integrate science and technology into the classroom. the great thing about this site is that it is actually a very fun game that challenges children to think in different ways to solve the puzzle. Whizzball will teach children the laws of gravity and momentum as well as force. I would use this game in the grade four curriculum in science to compliment the unit on momentum and force.
This site will help teachers:
To promote both intuitive, imaginative thought and the ability to evaluate ideas, processes, experiences and objects in meaningful contexts. (CCT)
To strengthen students' understanding of energy through applying knowledge of numbers and their interrelationships. (NUM)
To develop an understanding of how knowledge is created, evaluated, refined and changed within science.
This would be a great introduction to forces and energy. Students would have the oppertunity to play Whizzball and figure out various puzzles while at the same time learn some of the concepts that would be taught in class.
After the unit was taught in class the students could return to the computers to play Whizzball again but this time they could build their own puzzle for their firends to try.

One of the items that I found to be useful out of the web 2.0 sites was the web 2.0 calendar titled Calendarhub. I believe that this would be very useful to a classroom teacher as a communication tool with parents. You have the option to place multiple people on the list to recieve the calendar that you create. A calendar that parents can access over the internet to see what is going on in the classroom on any specific day would be very helpful. Once you have created a calendar each item that you post has the option to be viewed by everyone or to be private to the publisher.

Lemonade Stand- Consumer mathematics

This web site can be used in many areas of the curriculum but for this purpose I would use it in a Grade 10 math class under the topic of consumer mathematics in the

Grade 10 Math Curriculum. Students will use this site Lemonade standto learn the cause and effect of marketing, demand, supply and factors that lead to a successful business. I would give the students the assignment to play the game and make a table of how sales were effeced by chioces that they made. the game can play fast or slow depending on how much time the students has. After the student has interacted with the site long enough and collected enough data to form a conclusion on the best practice and combination to use when selling lemonade, they will complete a written report on their experiences and present to the class. As a point of interest students that achieved the highest profit will be highlighted and as a class we can speculate why they were so successful.

Biography Clothesline

I stumbled on this site when I was looking for biographies created by children. once there I found that it offered some very useful material. This site would be more suited for grade 4 or 5 but could be simplified for grade 3. I would use this site in either a history class or Language arts. In language arts I would use this site to demonstrate various biographies created by children for my students. I would allow the students time to read 1 or 2 biographiesfrom the Clothesline that interested them so that they could get a grasp of the idea behind biography writing. Another possibility is I would assign one student to a biorgaphy and at the end they would share with the class what they learned 1 or 2 key points. next I would print off the

Quiz and ask some of the questions that we heard answers to in the discussions. The next step would be to have students pick a canadian that they could research and compose a brief biography like the examples. once the research was complete we could create a blogg and post them on the blogg.