KBLOG ALERT?

Interesting, exciting and timely educational material often catches my attention. This includes upcoming webinars and science competition announcements. When I do find any time-sensitive material relevant to helping educators and their students I will pass those on in my KBLOG ALERTS. Girls who Code Forum and Ping Pong Pickup Engineering Challenge

How do I know what I read now is attributed to a human or a computer? Does it matter? A human is conscious of what they write. AI, right now, is not. With the growth of working and learning from home, many students are hiding in their rooms with computers, and as a result, there has been a steel decline in face-to-face human interaction. We may not even know if we are interacting with a human or a machine. AI could be a way to disguise incompetence in the form of competence. Given this, I decided to jump in and NOT write the rest of this KBLOG but use ChatGPT to write it, I hope I remain a good person after this attempt.

Education has been influenced and driven by technological change. Considering the many changes in education over the past fifty years, those changes will be dwarfed by the technological revolution that is now upon us! This technology, in the form of Open Artificial Intelligence, is shaking the foundations of all our educational institutions. Artificial intelligence will have a greater impact on teaching and learning compared to all other former technological educational shifts. I will try to address some of the current and future implications of artificial intelligence in education in a series of KBLOGS.

In my search to find a method for my students to determine leaf surface area led me to a great tool called ImageJ. ImageJ is a free image processing program developed by the National Institute of Health and the Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation (University of Wisconsin). Basically, any video or photo taken can be analyzed. It is a great tool for classroom or homeschool use.

A humorous video by Stanford University Design Institute students is presented as a model to help your students effectively brainstorm ideas, for example, designing experiments or deriving ideas for inventions or other projects.

Observe and apply biomimicry in the classroom. There are hundreds of examples of biomimicry, products inspired by nature. Have your students research examples. When they get comfortable with biomimetic concepts have them develop their own ideas based on observations and ideas they come up with. To help educators to do this, website tools are included in this KBLOG.

Check out the STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) Summer High School Intern Program. An amazing and unique life changing opportunity STEM internship research program for sophomores and juniors who are U.S. citizens interested in earth and space science. Deadline for application is Feb 20, 2023. Sponsored by NASA, University of Texas and Texas Space Grant Consortium. Housing, meals and activities provided. is a KBLOG ALERT?

The skills that inventors have are skills I want my students to develop. In my mind as I teach, I try to emphasize inventor skills related to curiosity, creativity and perseverance, all key characteristics needed to learn and do science. My first encounter with the amazing product Velcro and the intriguing story of the its development has stayed with me all my teaching career. My teaching is always geared to get my students to start thinking like inventors and scientists.

The direct connection of scientist-student-teacher can be inspiring, eye-opening and life changing. I have connected many of my students with scientists and the results are astounding. When students and teachers, organizations and homeschoolers connect with STEM professionals, it makes the basic information that students learn in class so much more relevant. SKYPE A SCIENTIST can help!

At this time in educational history, you should not have bored students! I cringe when I hear students say, “this stuff is so boring.” That statement is just not acceptable. I cannot think of a better platform for students to engage in applying their skills and gaining new knowledge than Zooniverse. Their webpage welcomes viewers with the statement “People-powered research” This site will stop boring,

A good educator will certainly have strong pedagogical skills. Educators will have well organized lesson plans, a variety of activities for their students to engage in, be organized and compassionate and be able to control classroom behavior. Those pieces are part of the package for anyone who successfully works with students. But the glue that holds all those skills together, making an educator truly outstanding, is humor.

What is a KBLOG ALERT?

Interesting, exciting and timely educational material often catches my attention. This includes upcoming webinars and science competition announcements. I have gathered many teaching tools from participating in webinars and I feel, as I will blog about them later, that science competitions should be a part of the life of students. When I do find any time-sensitive material relevant to helping educators and their students I will pass those on in my KBLOG ALERTS.

You must have heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. From my experience a picture is also worth a thousand ideas, a thousand questions, a thousand student exchanges and a thousand possibilities. Where can you find pictures that will get students into the thousands? NASA, on the website Earth Observatory has a huge treasure of online publicly available libraries of pictures that can be used to get your children/students thinking. These pictures can be jumping off points for deep learning and thinking.

“my NASA data” is a fantastic website for finding great datasets, tools to work with data, teacher support and resources. Any science educator, formal teacher, parent or homeschooler working with students will find that this NASA website will open academically challenging and fun experiences to all learners.

There are many science-based opportunities for young people and teachers that are made available through NASA. It can be overwhelming to keep up with the immense number of valuable educational products and events NASA provides for free to the public. A great way to access the educational material (Kindergarten to University) available through NASA is NASAEXPRESS

www.k12stemspace.com/k-blog/freedom-to-design-experiments

How can teachers achieve their classroom/homeschool goals of making things interesting, fun, and challenging? How can they maintain student attention and enthusiasm for learning at a high level for a relatively long period of time? One way to achieve these goals and create a great learning atmosphere is with the use of music.

Have you ever heard the following questions from students: “What goes on the x and y axis?” and “How do I organize this data?” or “What do I do with this data?”. How do you get students to internalize how and what graphing is all about? How can students learn and appreciate the value of data visualization? An important life skill. Suggest you use https://datanuggets.org/

This KBLOG has a great computer simulation site for science teachers, parents, homeschoolers and students.

It is important that you use videos that are generally short, have a clear message, and relate to what you are teaching at the time. I offer some great examples of science videos that are succinct, have beautiful graphics and powerful music.