Hello folks,

Second year physics/ESS teacher here. Im currently at home on a Saturday night stressed out about work on Thursday not having everything finished for that day (we have until new years off). I feel like even now after teaching a full first year I get extremely overwhelmed about the prospect of a full week.

Most of my classes are so easy discipline-wise compared to last year (excluding one class...) but I still wake up in sweats freaking out about lesson planning. Ifeel like it's never fully ready.

As a physics teacher i don't have any common planning with anyone, all of the course is completely made by me, for better or for worse. I'm happy of the product I've made last year, but it really needs some TLC in the pacing department. How long should a teacher like me spend on an hour of instruction? I feel like I spend many times 1.5 hours for every one hour of unique instruction which seems impossible to keep up with. Is this normal?

This is my first year teaching science- I have taught other subjects just this is new and I do not have a science background. So far it has been fine as I just make sure I stay ahead of the kids as I put lessons and projects together so I can fully explain them.

For whatever reason, high and low pressure and just not clicking with me for weather. Could someone help me figure out what is wrong with my thinking so I can fix it?

The lessons prior to high and low pressure are all about hot air rises and cool air sinks and their density. That was fine. Now here is where I am losing my understanding. I keep flipping what they are in my thinking.

High pressure = happy weather but it's a result of the air cooling and sinking. In my mind this means it should be raining but its the opposite. Why is there not rain if the air is sinking?

Low pressure- lousy weather the air is heating and rising- So my thinking is oh it's not raining yet, it is building up the rain. For whatever reason my brain wants this to be the nice weather because it is warm air rising preparing to rain.

Could someone please explain this in better terms. I am not sure why I want them to be flipped in what they mean and do.

I need something more modern than the 20 year old documentary’s we’ve been using. Talking about food supply, land management, bees, etc. I’d love if they were on DVD or Disney because district blocks everything else but there are workarounds. Any suggestions?

I remember a video on Reddit that used dots to explain natural selection and it was nearly impossible to argue against but i can’t find it. Any ideas where it is?

After College Board reworked their AP Physics C curriculum I started going through all the questions in AP Classroom before each unit. I noticed that they moved the discussion about the center of mass to unit 2 (forces/Newton's Laws) from unit 4 (momentum). I also noticed that in the energy unit, they talk about path integrals. This is all first-semester material, but integrals aren't covered until the second semester in AP Calculus (and in other calculus classes too).

So, how are you introducing these topics to students when they don't even know what an integral is? I have tried to show them how to do an integral as an operation, but they struggled with it. Some of my students really freaked out too.

Did you try the same thing? Did it work for you? Or are you just waiting until review time to bring it up?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hey Everyone!

I have a VERY unique teaching situation. I work at a very small rural alternative school with about 60 students in the whole high school program. I teach ALL of the math and science. I also do not have a lab space. Because I teach so many things my classes only meet twice a week, so students are expected to take a lot on independently. I post absolutely everything for the quarter at once and give students pacing guides, and pull small groups or work one on one with students in class( Modern Classrooms Project type stuff). Honestly everything is great, but I don't currently have any framework for students to do projects. We do some labs and group activities, but never projects. So my question is this: what are your ideas for how I could incorporate projects into this whole thing? Any frameworks/ websites/ books/ key words/ ideas are welcome. Just trying to brainstorm how to do this.

hi, i’m a 9th grader and my term project for bio was to test how different levels of pH affects the conservation of some fruits&veggies. we started the exp and 1 week later, we took some samples from the petri dish with organic rose vinegar and carrot in it, the petri dish was like this. we wasn’t expecting something like this, and my bio teacher said it could be a probiotic/prebiotic of the vinegar. i’m not sure but through some research i found one petri dishes of bacillus subtilis that looks like this, but they usually have branch-like structures to connect them in the photos, not flower-like. do you have any ideas? thank you for reading ehehe :)

i attached the photos i found from the internet that was kinda looking similar, the photo of the petri dish and the jar we took the sample from.(the white thing is the mother of vinegar occured because of the organic vinegar)

hey I’m gearing up to start my pgce in chemistry next year (this is teacher qualification for non-UK folks). I’ve been working as a science tutor for the past few years (my degree was in biochem).

I know there’s loads of materials out there, so I’d love to hear from seasoned teachers: What are your fave GCSE science resources? Books, websites, interactive tools, even apps. I've had a friend recently do her pgce and she felt overwhelmed by the lesson prep, so am trying to get ahead of the curv

I really like kurzgesagt.

Does anyone have any solutions for a science lab classroom without sinks?

My classroom is an addition to the art room, so we have to walk through art to get to science. Art has two large sinks, but it is frustrating and disruptive for both myself and the art teacher to send kids in or run in to refill water.

I have tried prepping and having large containers but when we do something where temperature is a factor, there are issues that always arise.

Any ideas for what to buy/set up/do for this situation?

**light switches are also in the art room, and I only have one window lol. Classroom or closet, who knows!

I just need some thoughts and encouragement. I will have a new class 2nd semester. This will be my fourth prep so keeping things "easy" is a huge goal of mine.

Now it's a class I have taught before and I use fill in the blank notes. This is a freshman biology class for struggling students so I try to make thigs as easy as possible for all of us.

Here is the thing. I have videos I created of me lecturing and providing the answers for the fill in the blank notes. Their current teacher is using my videos and resources in their class. Is it okay if I just keep using the videos even though I'm there in person? I'd like to do a good job, but I don't have ppts to go along with the fill in the blank notes. (They are Doodle Notes from Mrs. Lau if you are familiar with them.)

Yesterday some lovely members of the school admin, happened to overhear a conversation I had with a coworker. I mentioned it was taking me a long time to get my lessons done for my AP physics C class, so I opted to not join my coworkers for lunch.

My admin later came to me concerned about what they heard. They told me it should take me less than 20 minutes to complete everything, lesson plan, gather resources/materials, and have a finished PowerPoint...

The PowerPoint is where it takes me forever！ All the diagrams, annimations, and equations, that i need, take me more than 20 minutes for each section. And then I have to create and solve problems to use for the students, and solve all the homework problems too!

Im fairly new to teaching, so if im missing using some exceptional tools, please let me know. Otherwise how long does it take you to create a complete lesson for your AP class?

Has anyone ever done a fun activity involving smell for a lab or stations? I teach high school chemistry and we were thinking about ways we could incorporate smell into our intermolecular forces units that would be fun for our students.

I have been teaching high school science for 10 years and my coworker/friend is on his 4th year. I try to help him here and there, as much as I can in my spare time. But I'm worried he's not progressing. His room looks like a tornado hit, every day. Sinks are full of dirty test tubes since August. Students off task, possibly unsafe. and he doesn't notice. Though he tries, he seems to acknowledge his disorganization as a somewhat immutable personality trait of being "laid back".

I am very detail oriented, and I can't expect him to become like me. But I question whether it's even possible to be an effective science teacher when you're that disorganized. I fear he is burning out and his instructional coach/admin hasn't helped him for 4 straight years, now maybe he is past the window of opportunity to learn good teaching habits. He copies all my lesson worksheets and he teaches only one prep, but still gets super behind on grading. When I was in my 4th year, I was prepping two subjects all on my own and I could decently control my classroom.

My friend has ADHD, and I've known plenty of teachers with ADHD but none had classrooms as chronically chaotic as his. Does anyone have any resources for teachers struggling with this?

During a holiday lab with my 8th graders:

“What do I do next?” “Read the procedure.” “How do I clean this?” “Did you read the procedure?” “Where do I put this?” “Read. The. Procedure!”

You just have to laugh. I swear I’m going to get a t-shirt with “READ THE PROCEDURE” printed in big, bold letters by the end of the year. Almost break!

Trying to show a film (can be a documentary) for last day of classes related to Earth Science. Preferabbly something newish. Hope to find some guided questions for it too. Any recommendations? Thank you!!

We are being asked to evaluate new curriculum options. The most promising options so far seem to be Inspire science (mcgraw hill) HMH Science Dimensions (Houghton mifflin harcourt) Other options are STEMscope, Discovery Education and Savvas- but based on teacher reviews I've seen so far it seems like these wouldn't work. Any input or experience (positive or negative) would be appreciated. Our district uses google for a lot including Google classrooms so any expierience with using the curriculum with google apps would be awesome. Thanks!

I recently graduated high school and a past teacher of mine inspired me to pursue a teaching degree. I’m taking a gap semester at the moment and starting a few classes at my community college this spring, then transferring to my state university in the fall. Though I work with young children, I’m gaining some classroom experience with my job right now as a preschool teacher. I took his Principles of Biomedical Studies class and his Human Body Systems class in high school, and being someone who’s fascinated by the human body and has thought about pursuing some occupation in the medical field or education, I decided what he does for a living is exactly what I want to do. What should my first steps be? What does this academic path look like? How can I prepare myself? I’d appreciate any advice here—I just can’t wait to get started:)

So we currently have Vernier equipment for our digital collection but it relies on an outdated computer program (it's fun trying to boot up the Windows 7 machines to see which ones will work for lab day). We are looking to upgrade to the standalone systems for photo gate timers. I am noticing that force sensors are not a part of this. Should I be looking for some sort of digital force sensor? I'm thinking that, for example, for a friction lab students would be able to see more clearly how force varies as it starts moving/continues moving as compared to a spring scale. The issue is I'm not finding a lot of digital force sensors. Is this not a common thing in classrooms? Should I be able to do labs with just photo gates?

Like title says, I'm looking for weather maps where you can toggle data layers on and off. This is because I'd like to create a jigsaw information gap activity where students study one data set at a time and later combine to answer a complex question. Ideally, this would be something I could print. The data layers I'm looking for are:

• stations
• fronts
• precipitation
• temperature
• wind
• pressure

Thanks!

Hi all, I've noticed our STEM web games (and in particular the one shown above) getting some regular attention and referrals from reddit and various blackboard sites. I'm happy they've been useful, but if you recognize this can you please drop some feedback below? What do you like, have trouble with in a technical sense or feel is lacking in content. Student feedback is great too! Planning on designing the next gen wave of games and want to do them better. TIA!

Hello all, 4th year Chemistry teacher here. I came into teaching on an alternative certification path. One of the things I'd done previously, was work in Forensics, so when I came across a Forensics Case File that I could use to help teach Nuclear Chemistry, I jumped on it.

I really had fun with the unit, it was a casefile from the 70s, about a guy who used a radioisotope to harm his own son as part of a bad divorce. I made major changes to everything, to fit my teaching style, but the actual information was solid. My kids, most of them, really enjoyed the deduction process, narrowing down a list of possible radioisotopes based on radiation emitted, determined form wounds sustained, half life, and industry availability. I of course, had a great time.

What I'm wondering, is if anyone had any notion of what other chemistry units could be taught utilizing forensic case files, or forensic techniques? Have you taught anything similar? Could you point me to a resource?

I'm not looking for a straight up Forensics course, I'll happily teach that if we ever offer it here, but right now I'm focused on general Chemistry ,and if it's possible to use Forensics to teach some of the basic concepts.

Any idea?