Ms. Schuler Science Teacher

If you give a kid a STEM challenge....      Kids are bound to ask a question! If a kid asks a question, a kid is likely to look for a solution. But if a kid  wants to find a solution, first he or she will need to do some research. If a kid does some research, there's bound to be MORE questions!          If you give a kid a STEM Challenge, they want to find a solution. If you give a kid a STEM Challenge...       You ENGAGE critical thinking skills.        You engage every kid.        You ignite creativity! If you give a kid a STEM Challenge they will find others to COLLABORATE with! If You give a kid a STEM Challenge.... They will design it and EXPLORE possibilities. When a kid can  build it they EXPLAIN why something works!...

  Traditionally, Unit 1 in 8th grade science is boring. Intuitively students understand genetics and reproduction but application of the ideas into science class is very difficult.   Why are "mom and dad" now parents? What the heck is offspring? Just the vocabulary alone is enough to send students to bed crying at night.   I was tasked at making these crazy allele things concrete How about those chromosomes? I can't see them, but they are important. I need to make this relevant.                             So You give a kid a STEM challenge . Problem: Design a toy that would teach genetics for the STEM Toy Company Constraints: A male and female parent model - with 4 distinguished traits 1 offspring It had to fit in a shoe box Illustrations of 3 additional offspring possibilities Use of pungent square t...

A fun look into what kids are doing in my classroom! Check it out! STEM Works!

COMING SOON... these are topics that I am working on!  Not enough hours in the day to address them all! As a full time Science Teacher, Full time PhD student, Full Time Single Mother and grandmother, my head is full of writing streams - sadly I cannot blog in the shower, or I could manage to get all of my streaming consciousness on paper. Eventually I hope to be able to learn how to dictate to my phone and speed up the process.  Until then I am keeping a list of  topics running here - if there is some topic that readers would like me to do over another, let me know. It will help me to prioritize my ramblings. "What came first the relationship or the expectation?" as inspired by Kim Campbell who I recently saw at the AMLE conference in Philadelphia. "STEM and ELLs: Building CALP for Emergent Bilingual (Why every teacher is a language teacher) "Peas and Carrots: Why NGSS and Common Core work together in every content" - Using STEM pedagogy across conten...