Info-graphic's for ANY science classroom.

        An informational tool that is a bit newer or at least becoming more popular are posters called  info-graphics.  If you google the word you will get hundreds of examples of all different types. An  info-graphic is the use of charts and visuals to represent information an data. They are extremely relevant in today's social media run world.  If you have never hear of them before, chances are you have seen one and didn't even realize it.

        I had my 8th graders this year make an info-graphic about the "Reasons for the Seasons."  This was the first year that It added an extra activity into this section.  The previous two years that I have taught seasons, I noticed that it was an area students struggled in.  After 2 years of the same struggle I decided to add some serious reinforcement to the lesson.  After doing this lessons the students did wonderful on this section of their unit exam. They also remembered it vividly as we studied for our semester final. So in a nutshell...Success!

Here are some of the examples that I got. 

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

I used the website Piktochart.com.  There are a lot of different websites that can be used to make these, this is just the most user friendly one that I have come across.  I also had them do this project in partners due to time restraints, but it would not be too difficult for a student to do it solo. 

Other ideas that would make great info-graphics 

Lab Reports

They would be a great alternative to summarize data and results.

Chemistry

Most dangerous household chemicals (MS, HS) 

abundance of elements in the body (MS,HS)

rates of different reactions done in class (HS)

Environmental 

Water Shortage (MS, HS)

Groundwater depletion (MS, HS)

Clean water around the world (MS, HS)

Greenhouse gas emissions (MS, HS)

Personal Carbon footprints (MS, HS)

Water pollution (MS, HS)

Different biomes (MS)

Earth Science 

A Geologic Time Period(MS, HS)

Alternative Energies (MS, HS)

The Rock Cycle (MS, HS)

Minerals (MS, HS)

Diamond formation and sales (MS, HS)

Astronomy 

Life Cycle of a star or our Sun compared to other stars (HS)

HR-Diagram (HS) 

Black Holes (HS)

Theoretical Physics (HS)

Newtons Laws (HS)

Biology 

Krebs Cycle (HS)

Anatomy (MS, HS)

A specific system (Skeletal, Nervous etc.) (HS)

Any STD, Mental Disease (MS, HS) 

       As you can see no subject is really off limits.  I always suggest making one yourself first, just too troubleshoot any issues the students may run into beforehand. If you have access to a color printer or have it in the budget,  I would get some posters made and put around school! The kids would love it! 

These two websites will help you get started!

Smashing Magazine 

Visual.ly 

Making Geologic Time Fun & Creative (As if it isn't already?)

     When Earth Science students first learn about geologic time (from now on GT) and big events that have happened in the past, they often have a hard time of grasping how long GT actually is.  It is tough to say that in" GT 100,000 years is a blink of an eye" and for them to understand the meaning of that statement.  So I have them do 2 lessons that I know can really help them become more comfortable with the timeline.

Lesson 1: GT on the Floor

Geologic timeline on the floor 
This lesson is not an original but it is a gemstone!

I measure 4.6 meters of string and have the students tape them around the room in the floor. The students get a stack of the cards that are cut out for them (mine are now laminated and reusable because I know I will continue to do this lesson).
The first day I have them put down the cards where they think they should go (with younger/lower level students I also help in marking the 500 million marks (50cm) and reminding them constantly that each centimeter is 10 million years). This first day is always the most interesting! They usually have no idea when events on the timeline have happened.  The one card that usually throws them off is the Eukaryote cell.  I do not tell them what any of the cards are until we do it together the next day.  Most of the time students will space out all of the cards evenly. Sometimes you see the critical thinking skills of students when it comes to plants moving to land before animals move to land which is always fun. The conversations they have while doing this lesson are awesome.  I also like it because it lets them know that its OK to be wrong sometimes (and that scares the pants off of them.) After they have laid out their cards, I have them draw a copy of the timeline in  their journal (or have them take a picture of it with their phones or laptops). If you wanted to get really intense I would have them write explanations for why they put certain cards in that particular order.  I have never had enough time for this in one class period, but I think it would be really awesome for them to analyze their own thinking processes.
The second day I post the events and the dates on the board and have them remake the timeline. This is usually very eye opening to most of my students when they see the order and times at which these events happened.  After they have recreated the timeline and copied it in their journal we then discuss the events.  This is a good chance to go ever the Eukaryotic cell and some other things they may have never heard of before.



Lesson 2 :GT analogy project

Geologic timeline analogy (I do not recommend doing this lesson for any student who is not in algebra or has taken algebra)

I have them start off with practicing scientific notation. This will get them ready to work with large numbers. This is another paper that is not an original that I got offline.

A lot of my students do not have scientific calculators so I have them use this calculator  on their laptops. This calculator is perfect because it shows the students what the calculator is recognizing that they are inputting.  It also saves their history so when I am checking their numbers I can see the mistakes that they may have made. Depending on what is available to your classroom will effect how you want to do the math section.  For extremely low students, or classrooms with little technology you can to all of the math together and pick just 1-2 objects to make your analogy over.

The students have to pick an object or thing that has a start and finish or a top and bottom.  The most popular analogies they pick are buildings, distances to their favorite vacation spot, length of a river, favorite movie. The best part is they can make it all their own, and no two are ever alike!

Here are some examples of the end products I have received.

Blue Whale GT Analogy 
Michael Jordan's Famous Dunk 
Secretariats Longest Stride
A Favorite Book Analogy
Map Example

 The majority of my students are in the beginning of algebra at the time so I set up the equations for them using this paper.

Once they get the hang of plugging in the numbers into the calculator it all gets a lot easier from there. At this point it is important to make sure they understand what the numbers they calculated actually mean. This takes some time and patience because most of your students will then have to do some subtracting.  This is so the beginning of the Earth correlates correctly with the beginning of the topic they picked (bottom of building, beginning of book, beginning of trip etc.)

***Note: The calculation is how far from the present***  

It is a longer lesson to get through with the math portion, but making it is the easy part! The students usually do not completely grasp the idea and have that AH HA moment until they really start the construction. It is stressful in the beginning of the project but always worth it in the end!I used to have them just make a poster using pages but this year I changed it up a bit.  I allowed them to also use Prezi, Powtoon.com and even Piktochart.com.

Scavenger Hunt Vocabulary Pictures!

        This lesson is exactly what it sounds like.  Students do a scavenger hunt and take pictures of our vocabulary words.  I do this unit for my Weather and Water unit for the 8th grade. I give the students a list of vocabulary words about a month to a month in a half before I actually want them done.  I give them this much time to ensure they have enough opportunities to get certain weather words like fog, precipitation and specific cloud types that we study.  It is also a great lesson because it forces students to be aware of the weather for that amount of time and can give them real life examples.  I allow the students to take pictures in anyway they can, just as long as they have the right cords to transfer them onto their laptops.  This allows them to use their cell phones, tablets, laptops, iPod's and cameras that they may have.  To make sure that the students are not getting their pictures from some other source they must have an "item" in the picture at all times that is unique to them.  It works best when it is something that they already ave on them all the time.  The easiest items I have seen work with this are glasses, bracelets, cell phone covers or the new favorite their faces! Allows them to take a lot of selfies! (I should mention that along the way you want to have mini deadlines.  Have them have 5 pictures by this date, 5 more by this date just to make sure they do not procrastinate).

At the end I give them a few options for what they can do with their scavenger hunt photos.  I also give them a Menu project to give them choice.

Here is an example of a blog an 8th grader of mine did with her photos.

Here is another one that was done slightly different.

This is a Prezi that another student did on Pictures.

These are the Menu Projects I also give my students if you are looking for some more ideas. It is also easy to differentiate the instruction.  If I have higher level students I will not allow them to do an appetizer and if you have lower level students you can have them focus on the desert and appetizer rather than the meal.

This one is in Pages if you have MAC

This one is in Word if you have PC


Modifications for other types of science classes

Chemistry- Different chemicals found in household appliances and foods.
Physics- Different types of energy transfers in everyday life. (electrical, chemical, heat transfer etc.)
Environmental- Pictures of places around town where you could improve the town and why. Places where a rain garden could fit instead of a drain, places to plant shrubs to absorb extra run off or areas that could use improvement. (probably for older students)

Basically any part of your curriculum you can force the students to have a heightened awareness of how this particular science is involved in their everyday lives.

Meet the Scientists Paper/Project

         One of the first projects I like to do with my high school classes is called Meet the Scientists.  This project I did when I was in college as an education student at Miami University.  There are various versions of this lesson that science teachers are usually exposed too depending on the age group they teach.  I have mostly freshman in high school so I start out with a research paper about the scientist  they are assigned.  This also serves as an introduction to APA citation (Which I can then hold them accountable for the rest of the year on other projects).  In this project the students will research more "unknown" scientists that have had a huge impact on our lives. These are the type of scientists they would not normally be exposed too. The list of scientists that I use are comprised of scientists that have made an impact on our society and must be a woman or a person of non-white ethnicity. In a nutshell "No old white guys!"


         In Meet the Scientist I start out with the bell ringer "Draw a picture of a scientist in your journal."   After giving them a few minutes I ask them to raise their hands and share some aspects about their scientists.  I always get the man with the crazy hair, glasses, white lab coat holding some kind of erlenmeyer flask.  Then I ask "tell me some names of scientists that you have heard of before." Too no surprise I always get Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Bill Nye the science guy, some remember Alfred Wegener and Galileo.  Maybe some extras here and there, but these are by far the most popular.

          I then begin to follow with the introduction to the project where we discuss that the stereotypes of scientist do not apply to ALL scientists.  I then give them the scientists and let them pick which one they would like to do a project on.  I make sure to let them know if they pick a scientists of the opposite gender they may have to impersonate them.

         After the students turn in their research papers I introduce them to their project. This will look different for every school depending on the technology they have.  We are very luck at my school in that all of the students have MacBook Air laptops they can take home.  I do have some really good ideas for non-tech classrooms as well.

The Project

I have attached in the paper that I give my students to introduce the paper and for them reference along the way.  Link Here.

Most of my students made 3 types of projects:

1) Whiteboard animations
     a) Here is a link to one on Neil DeGrasse Tyson that a student did in my class.

2) Personal narrative as scientists
      a) Where it was just them dressed and acting like their scientists in the video.

3) Interview of scientist
     a) This is where scientists can either interview each other

4) Making a video as a their scientists


Non-Tech classrooms: If you do not have access to computers or video cameras there is still a lot of things that are cheap and accessible.

Some Ideas might be

• Make a twitter feed on a blank wall and have them draw their profile pictures and write "tweets" that might have come from their scientists. (Also can be fun with the use of hashtags) 
• Have them do an in class presentation as their scientists (more fun in costume) 
• Have them do a meet and greet as themselves in class and as character 
• Or they can have the option of what type of project they do