Project Groundhog
(http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/Groundhog/guide/whatghog.htm) Project Groundhog engages students in exploring whether or not the groundhog is an accurate weather predictor. For the six weeks following Groundhog Day, February 2nd, students monitor and record the daily temperature and sky conditions.
Students also record how often school was closed due to weather. The information collected is shared weekly with the participating schools via email and the Project Groundhog website. Registration for the project is online at the web site (http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/Groundhog/register.htm).
Track Your State’s Weather
Discuss weather forecasting terms, vocabulary, and concepts
of movement. If possible invite a local weatherman to visit your
classroom. Students then choose or are assigned a state to research.
They may use an electronic encyclopedia or the Weather
Channel site (http://www.weather.com)
and choose a major city in their selected state. (Note: Students
may need to select 4 or 5 major cities in the event the city they selected
is no listed at the web site.) At the Weather Channel site
students will click the Weather Current Conditions and go to the Current
Conditions and Five-Day Forecasts for over 1, 2000 cities. Click
on the first letter of the state chosen or click on the state map.
Students may share their findings by creating a bulletin board displaying
their research. Older students can create graphs of their results.
The Solar System
This group activity provides students an opportunity
to explore and research the planets. Each group will select one of
the nine planets. During Tech Time students will research their planets
using one of the following web sites:
Space
and Astronomy Cool Places for Kids http://www.teelfamily.com/links/space.html
NASA
Observatorium http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov/nasa/core.shtml
Astronomy
Picture of the Day http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
The
Nine Planets http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html
Astronomy
for Kids http://www.dustbunny.com/afk/
Skywatching
from Earth and Sky http://www.earthsky.com/Features/Skywatching/
Each group will then take their research findings to
create one slide in a PowerPoint presentation entitled, Our Nine Planets.
The presentation should begin with a title slide and a contents slide.
Using the Action Settings feature each slide should have a link back to
the Contents slide.
Science Scavenger Hunt
Using the Science
Scavenger hunt web site (http://208.183.128.3/techupdate/scavenger/science.html)
instruct students to use the sites listed on the page to locate the answers
to the questions. The site may be printed and students may write
their answers as they locate them online.
Systems of the Body
Third grade students can work in groups to create a PowerPoint
slide to describe the systems of the body. Each group will select or be
assigned one of the following systems:
Nervous System, Circulatory
System, Muscular System,
Digestive
System, Respiratory System,
and Skeletal System. Information and
graphics about these systems can be found at the following web sites:
Circulatory
System http://library.advanced.org/10348/find/content/circulatory.html
Digestive
System http://library.advanced.org/10348/find/content/digestive.html
Muscles
of the Human Body http://www.ptcentral.com/muscles/
Nervous
System http://library.advanced.org/10348/find/content/nervous.html
Respirtatory
System http://library.advanced.org/10348/find/content/respiratory.html
Skeletal
System http://library.advanced.org/10348/find/content/skeletal.html
The
Human Body http://tqjunior.advanced.org/5777/
Human
Anatomy Online http://www.innerbody.com/
Track Your Pulse
Students can take their pulse using a blood pressure
machine and record their findings on a class bar graph that the teacher
can create using Excel. Web sites that will provide more information
for students on blood pressure are:
Taking
Blood Pressure http://madsci.wustl.edu/experiments/archive/859422898.Bi.html
Encyclopedia.com
http://aj.encyclopedia.com/articles/01581.html
Science
Online Activities
Table of Elements
(10-12) http://www.edu4kids.com/chem/
Quia! Science Activities
http://www.quia.com/sci.html
Proton Donhttp://www.funbrain.com/periodic/index.html
Newton’s Applehttp://ericir.syr.edu/Projects/Newton/
Basic
Skill Practice http://208.183.128.3/techupdate/basicskills.html