Organization of Ecosystems

Today we are working on the organiztion and interactions in an ecosystem.  We started it yesterday and did this today to wrap it up.  The students wrote the notes part first.  Then we watched part of the "Creatures of the Deep" episode of the video Life.  I stopped it and we drew the pictures to fit the part we watched.  I use the Life episodes for all kinds of things.  They are super engaging and you can relate them to almost anything.

I got the activity from http://www.mysciencebox.org/ecoorg.  It has both the student printout and teacher guide.

Biotic and Abiotic Factors

This week we started life science with biotic and abiotic factors.  I made a 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) lesson for this topic that incorporated technology.  We are a bring your own device campus.  The students tried it out earlier this week and it went really well.  Looking at their scores on the Evaluate portion showed that it was really effective.  Most of my students missed at most 1-2 of the 49 questions.  This is my first year using QR codes and I have to say that they make internet assignments so much easier.  I wish I would have discovered them sooner!  Below is a link to this assignment if you are interested.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Biotic-and-Abiotic-5E-Lesson-wTechnology-1168735