Erica Tillotson - Elementary Science Methods Blog

  What did you learn this week? This week I learned about flower dissection. I learned about how there are different male and female parts of a flower. The female parts include the stigma and ovary. The stigma is the parts of the pistil where pollen germinates. The ovary is the enlarged basal portion of the pistil where ovules are produced. I learned that the parts of a male are the anther and filament. In addition we learned about sea turtles and that only about 1/1,000 baby sea turtles survive and make it to the ocean.  2.  Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew? I remember when I was younger learning about sea turtles, and how there were hundreds of eggs they are hatched by the sea shore. I remember reading a book about how humans were helping the sea turtles make it safely to the ocean which reminded me of the activity in class, whether the turtle were to survive or not. I was able to learn new information about sea turtles and relate it...

  What did you learn this week? This week I learned about ecology, specifically food webs and food chains. A food chain is something that describes who eats whom. It starts with a producer and then proceeds with the following levels of a consumer. These are primary, secondary, and tertiary. The different arrows in a food chain show the flow of energy and matter. A food chain is a singular path through an ecosystem and a food web is a more detailed relationship between each level.  2.  Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew? I do remember learning about food chains when I was younger. When we were looking at the food chains that looked like a pyramid I had recognized and remembered that from before. I was able to relate what I already knew about food chains and food webs to what we had newly learned today. My previous knowledge also helped me understand the definitions of both better.  3.  How can you apply what you've learned to your te...

What did you learn this week? This week I learned about the 5E Models.  The definition of a 5E model is that it is a series of instructional steps designed to learn science concepts with understanding. It Consists of five teaching phases, each titled by a word that begins with the letter E. The 5 E's are engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate. It is a widely accepted instructional model for inquiry based instruction.  How can you apply what you've learned to your teaching in the future?  In the future I would like to structure some of my science lesson plans around using the 5E model. I want to be able to incorporate each one of these into the lesson because I liked how each step helps the student and the teacher with their knowledge.  Which parts did you find clear and which were confusing? I thought that everything was pretty clear and self explanatory. After reading the explanations for every different E, and also creating the table of the students and tea...

  What did you learn this week?  This week I learned about life cycles, including the mealworm, butterfly, and lima bean plant. The meal worm's life cycle consists with starting with the eggs, then mealworm, then pupa, then beetle. The mealworm has three distinct sections which are the head, thorax, and abdomen. I also learned about the life cycle stages which are germination, growth and development, flowering and reproduction, and seed development.  Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already know?  When I was younger I specifically remember learning about the life cycle of a butterfly and frog specifically. So learning about the butterfly life cycle now, made me think about the activities and information I learned when I was younger. I had forgotten and did not know about the pupa stage with a butterfly so it was interesting to learn about that now later.  How can you apply what you have learned to your teaching in the future?  I really li...

What did you learn this week? This week I learned about the eight different characteristics of living things. These eight characteristics included cellular composition, genetics and heredity, maintains homeostasis, growth and change, movement, responds to stimuli, metabolism, and reproduction. I also learned that a virus is not a living thing because it has no cells and no metabolic processes.  Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already know?  Yes, I am able to relate what we learned about the characteristics of living things to what I already know because I already knew what these concepts meant to me, and how they relate to different things outside of the classroom, but this just built on my specific knowledge about all of them and provided me with a more clear definition.  How can you apply what you learned to your teaching in the future? I really liked the making the visual posters with our group after learning about the eight characteristics. I would...