Diocese of Allentown
2145 Madison Ave.
Bethlehem, PA 18017-4698
Telephone: (610) 866-0581 FAX: (610) 867-8702
Here are some more web sites for Science Teachers
1.
Here are some fun web sites that have come to my attention
Earthquake information:
This is a good video that describes the differences between Haiti and Chile EQs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35640584#35623140
This shows damage to Chile:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/earthquake_in_chile.html
GENETICS:

Check out www.zerobio.com and look at a
workbench.concord.org,activity #34. It is a neat interactive
activity that uses dragons to demonstrate genotype,
phenotype, heterozygous, homozygous, dominant and
recessive genetic characteristics. This is mostly for grades 912. They have a number of biological related activities and
games.
GEOLOGIC TIME activities for elementary through high school:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/fosrec/index.html
 Try
http://facweb.bhc.edu/academics/science/harwoodr/Geol101/L
abs/Minerals/ for online mineral identification practice.
 Also take a look at http://scienceclass.net/Geology/rocks_minerals.htm. This former teacher
has compiled many great resources for Earth Science topics

Oceanography/Weather From Mary Bigelow: Have you looked at the resources from NOAA?
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/edu/lessonplans/lessonplans.htm
l
 http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/lesson_plans.html

http://www.montereyinstitute.org/noaa/
 I also like NOAA's Data in the Classroom that guides students
through different levels of inquiry:
http://www.dataintheclassroom.org/

OWL PELLETS – one teacher wondered what Owls ate. Here is the response from Sheri
Amsel:
Here is a little movie about what owls
eat: http://www.exploringnature.org/db/detail.php?dbID=41&de
tID=2072
 Here is an illustrated owl pellet
worksheet: http://www.exploringnature.org/db/detail.php?dbI
D=104&detID=2317
 General information about
owls: http://www.exploringnature.org/db/subcat_detail_index.p
hp?dbID=43&subcatID=34
 See www.exploringnature.org for additional and related
information

VIRUS Information and modeling

Here's an idea for a nice visual model, showing relative sizes
(bacteria v. virus), and function (virus can inject its DNA/RNA
into bacteria (or other cells).
Get a 1 liter plastic soda bottle (even better if you can get two,
cut the top off one just above where it curves in, and cut the
bottom off another bottle, about 5-10 cm above the curve, then
slip the bottom over the bottle with the slight curve at its top,
and you have a bottle with two bottoms - looking roughly like a
much enlarged rod-shaped bacterium. Best are those old
bottles with rounded bottoms and a plastic base slipped over
them (real hot water will soften the attaching glue to remove
the plastic bases - and the labels). If you can put in about 7
yards of colorful yarn, that would represent the DNA in a
bacterium (the two-bottomed bottle) - no nucleus.
Fashion a T2 type virus with a plastic injection syringe (no
needle). Cut out of cardboard a polygon-shaped "head" and
"tail" of the T2 virus that just covers the syringe, and tape the
two together, with the plunger in the "head" region. With a drill
or hot needle, bore about a 2mm hole in the side of the
"bacterium" bottle. Suck up some colored water (food
coloring) into the syringe, poke it into the bacterium bottle (with
syringe visible only to you), and inject its watery RNA/DNA into
the bacterium. The sizes are roughly proportional to their real
relative sizes. Kids can see real bacteria under a microscope
at 400x, so they get a good idea of how small viruses are.
And injecting their RNA/DNA into bacteria or other cells is one
way that they reproduce and cause havoc. This is from Larry
Flammer flammer4@gmail.com
 Flash animation module on influenza
(http://cbm.msoe.edu/stupro/so/InfluenzaModule.html). The
site shows video with narration and the content is excellent at
introduce lock and key concepts, structure of influenza virus
and its mutations. Vocabulary is high level but the short videos
can be shown with care in the middle school
Teaching Evolution:
From Virginia Malone’s site see: http://www.wetheteachers.com/viewfiles.php?fid=2282 She
has a number of lesson plans with activities that deal with the teaching of evolution.
Here is a printable cut out for making DNA: http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/DNA50/cutout.html
From Mike Klymkowsky, Michael.Klymkowsky@colorado.edu: For the course MCDB 3330:
Evolution and Creationism, I have generated a list of
materials: http://www.colorado.edu/MCDB/Evolution/ As well as map of sorts for evolutionary
thinking
http://www.colorado.edu/MCDB/Evolution/evolution%20teach%20outline_Web_PNG/index.ht
ml
From Berkeley: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evohome.html This website has tons of
information about evolution plus lesson plans. Another website created by Berkeley is
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php. This website is more for the layman.
Teaching Green:
See: http://greenschools.net/ has suggestions for projects and student involvement; in
creating green schools and climate. http://essea.strategies.org/ has several PBLs.
Climate Change: This article comes from Teresa Eastburn (eastburn@ucar.edu)
I work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. I understand that the communication
on this subject has been very confusing and misleading, especially in mainstream media, but
in terms of what climate scientists have learned from extensive research on the topic during
the last thirty years, the facts are overwhelmingly clear: Warming of the climate system in
unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and
ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea
level." IPCC 2007 and "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since
the mid-20th century is very likely (very likely: >90% chance) due to the observed increase in
anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." IPCC 2007 The IPCC did release their 2007
report, and two errors have been found in the report as noted in the media (note: they self
reported these errors), but this is inevitable. The IPCC's 2007 assessment report on the
causes and impacts of climate change was over 3,000 pages long, cited more than 10,000
scientific papers and is policymakers' main data source. This body of the world's leading
climate scientists (appointed to this body by their country's gov't) reviews the peer reviewed
research on climate for approximately a six year period every six years, then summaries the
findings for their gov't's policymakers. There are thousands of scientists who take part in the
proceedings.
Every mainstream science organization in the United States has signed a statement attesting
to Earth's anthropogenic (human caused) warming in addition the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and NASA (please see websites that follow.) In addition, the US
pentagon, CIA and other entities have active programs to address possible US security
concerns as a result of climate change.
NOAA Climate Timeline: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/
NASA and JPL Global Climate Change site: http:..climate.jpl.nasa.gov/
Latest movie on Climate Change from NASA just out: http://climate.nasa.gov/
US Global Change Research Program: hppt://www.globalchange.gov
Climate Change Education Web site: http://www.climatechangeeducation.org
Teachers' Guide to High quality Educational Materials on Climate Change (old but still good):
http://hdgc.epp.cmu.edu/teachersguide/teachersguide.htm
Climate Modeling videos from NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/e-media-produced-by-gfdl-ccvp#video
More videos and podcasts from NOAA's GFDL: http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/e-media-gfdl-ccvpgroup-main
More from GFDL: http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/climate-change-variability-and-prediction
NCAR Learning Modules (free; huge variety of atmospheric science topics. Just sign up.):
http://www.meted.ucar.edu/
NCAR Multimedia gallery pertaining to climate change:
http://www.ucar.edu/news/features/climatechange/multimedia.jsp#sciviz
and last by not least, these two sites have great curricula on climate change:
facingthefuture.org
www.windows.ucar.edu
And don't forget the IPCC site (download Summary for Policy Makers): http://www.ipcc.ch/
But I am not here to convince you or others of this. Nor can I. We all have to look at our "ways
of knowing" and decide the truth as best we can using the evidence that we have to date.
Climate is a complex science and each person, especially educators, would likely benefit from
reviewing NOAA, NASA, NCAR science, websites, etc. and other reputable sources to learn
more. It is true that climate has changed throughout Earth's history, but the warming today is
not attributed to the natural forces of the past (Earth's tilt, wobble, orbit, atmospheric
composition due to extreme volcanic activity, solar insolation (sun activity during 1900s = .2
contribution to warming). Scientists all agree that GHG trap infrared heat and we do know that
we've increased GHG. CO2, the gas that humans have impacted the most, has increased
over 35% since the industrial revolution. It is too bad that the science behind Earth's climate
has become politicized and people feel that they have to choose sides based on their
worldview. It really shouldn't be so. There is a great deal of common ground and we should
find it and move forward in my opinion with the best research and tools at our disposal.
Regardless of your views and the values that you hold that make you doubt the scientific
evidence, I hope that we all can agree that sustainable energy sources are a good goal. How
we get to that will need lots of debate so that we take the best path forward. If you sincerely
are interested in climate change research, I am happy to try to answer any of your questions
or put you in touch with NCAR and IPCC scientists who can help you understand their work
and findings.
I highly recommend the book, "Why We Disagree About Climate Change" by Michael Hulme
for any science teacher or climate change communicator.
Sincerely,
Sr. Ann Monica Bubser, IHM
Assistant Superintendent of Schools
Diocese of Allentown