We had a chance to walk through the exposition and check out some of the projects from these smartypants, and let me tell you, this was unlike any science fair I recall from my school years. No exploding volcanoes or styrofoam solar systems here. Instead, students passionately described their hypotheses, observations, studies, results, and conclusions addressing some of the world’s most important challenges.

The studies we saw at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair exemplify Authentic Learning. These students have identified real challenges or problems in the world and are proposing real solutions for solving these problems.

Ever Wonder What Turns Sunscreen White?

We stopped by to talk with Ada, Oklahoma senior, Leah Huling, about her concern over the disposal and accumulation of titanium dioxide nano particles in waste water treatment plants. I had to ask Leah what exactly titanium dioxide nano particles were and she explained that they are used in hundreds of commercial products such as sunscreen, lotion, shampoo, and even some foods, and are used to turn these products a pretty, snowy white color.

Here’s a brief summary of her project and why she’s passionate about using science to help our environment.

2013 Award Winners

The grand prize of $75,000 for this year’s event went to 19 year-old Ionut Budisteanu from Romania for his research and design for a viable, low-cost, self driving car that uses 3-D radar and mounted cameras to detect traffic lanes and curbs along with the position of the car. Way cool!

The Intel Foundation Young Scientists awards went to Eesha Khare, 18, of Saratoga, California for her invention of a tiny device that fits inside of cell phone batteries that allows them to fully charge in 20-30 seconds and Henry Lin, 17, of Shreveport, Louisiana, for his simulation of thousands of clusters of galaxies providing scientists with valuable data that will allow them to better understand the mysteries of astrophysics.

Here are a just a few examples of some of the of the other types of studies we saw:

• Comparative Study on Cell Phone Addition Among Adolescents in the United States and South Korea: Factors Predicting Cell Phone Addition from Rachel Hyojim Kim, Iowa
• An “EXTRA” Sense: Ultrasound Glove Assisting Spatial Orientation of the Visually Impaired from Ivan Seleznov, Ukraine
• A Sustainable and Low Cost Approach for Cleaning Metal Contaminated Water Using Pyrolyzed Banana Peels from Bluye B. DeMessie, Ohio
• Predicting Earthquakes by Monitoring the Electron Content of the Ionosphere from Nicolas Javier Marone, and Aviv Rabinovich, Israel
• Using Exothermic Reactants to Improve the Efficacy of Life Jackets in Decreasing the Chances of Hypothermia, from Danielle Mallabone, South Africa

There were too many fascinating studies to list here but you can see the list of all of the event finalists here.

Inspire Future Scientists

We couldn’t help but be inspired by these young minds advancing research and science in such brilliant ways. Here are a few great resources to help inspire and motivate your own students to discover, research, and solve the next global challenge.

• Science News
• Science News for Kids
• Untamed Science
• National Science Digital Library
• Internet Public Library – Science Fair Project Guide
• Science Buddies
• Scientific American
• Planet Diary
• OLE Lesson Freebie – Cleaning Up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I went on a mission to find apps that were student-friendly, comprehensive, and inspiring.  Read on to learn more about a multitude of apps that are sure result in beautiful student work.

The Written Word

An essay, story, or poem can make for some of the most expressive student work.  These iPad apps make writing engaging and visually beautiful at the same time.

Scribble Press ($3.99): Students can “Imagine, Create, and Publish” stories both online and using the app.  Get inspired by browsing through the gallery of thousands of other student-created stories.

For a price you can also download a variety of “story packs” which include borders, stickers, and more fun accessories.

ScriptsPro ($12.99):  Students love choices.  Next time give them the choice of demonstrating their learning by writing a screenplay!  This app makes it easy to write and edit professional-grade scripts that turn our polished and are easy to share.

Strip Designer ($2.99): Comics have never been more colorful or of more professional quality.  This app boasts a multitude of fun features and is great to use with students of all ages.

Strip Designer App

iBooks Author (free): Older students will love creating graphic ebooks which are easy to share via download.  This app would be great for student portfolios. *Mac app only.

Presentations

A great project is incomplete without a presentation of student learning.  Regardless of the audience, be it in person or online, these creative apps will present student learning in a creative, stimulating way!

Haiku Deck (free): I am a fan of Keynote, but this app sets a new bar.  You and your students can create crisp, interactive presentations that can be viewed to a live audience via VGA cable, or from personal handheld devices.

Their tutorial “decks” alone will get you excited to get started. Also, check out their Tips for using Haiku Deck in the Classroom.

Don’t miss their Pinterest board of education decks for inspiration.

Prezi (free): This application has been available online for years- but is fairly new to the app world.  Students can create video-like presentations that allow the creator to embed images, video, PDFs, and more.

This app is more appropriate for older students, since it takes some practice and is not quite as easy to navigate as Keynote or Powerpoint.

Artistic expression

Integrating the arts into the classroom creates engaging, meaningful learning experiences for kids.  Your students will appreciate your willingness to let them show their artistry by using these apps:

GarageBand ($4.99): Have you ever given students the option of writing a song as a product of their learning?  For $4.99 they can have a full-fledged recording studio at their finger tips – their sound will be more polished than ever.

• Getting started: How to Compose Music Using GarageBand

iDesign ($4.99): This 2D vector drawing/design app is create for blueprints, technical and scientific drawings, product design, and more.

Phototoaster ($1.99): Think Instagram, but less public.  This fun app makes photo editing a cinch and makes photos taken from a phone look artsy.

Journaling

e-Jounals are useful for a variety of reasons – they are great for student reflection and can act as an artifact of student thinking and learning.  While you can type within each of the apps listed, I recommend a Stylus like the Wacom’s Bamboo for journaling on a handheld device.

The Bamboo Stylus offers a pen-like writing experience for tablets and mobile devices

Paper (free + upgrades): This app has been getting a lot of press lately, and for good reason.  Students can create journals of sketches, brainstorms, reflections, and more.

Overview of the 5 tools you can use in the Paper app to get creative

InkFlow (free): This “visual thinking” app is simple and does a great job of capturing the student process. Unlike Paper, this app allows you to insert photographs and a variety of other media alongside your written ideas.

Inkflow works like a Word Processor for Visual Thinking

WordPress (free): Use the free app as a means for students to access their online student blog, which can serve as a collection of reflections and ideas, or an online forum for academic conversation.

For more ideas on apps and using the iPad in your classroom, check out my other blog posts on Innovative iPad Uses, Apps for Teachers, and iPads Across the Curriculum.

Ice? At the equator? Stories of climate change often take you to polar regions with arctic conditions, but this week the Untamed Science crew heads straight to the tropics. Scientist Neil Losin walks us through his recent expedition to the Rwenzori mountains in Uganda, where he chronicled the disappearance of glaciers. It’s an eye-opening account of how much ice has disappeared since the first expedition in these mountains nearly 100 years ago.

About Untamed Science

Produced and hosted by a diverse crew of science-expert-videographers, these lively, flexible videos can be used to introduce a topic, reinforce concepts, or simply add some fun to a lesson presentation.

• “Untamed Science” Educational Video Series Named as a Finalist for “Best Children’s Program” at the International Wildlife Film Festival
• Take a look at some of the additional Untamed Science videos OLE contains.

In a 2006 paper in the journal Science, biologists claimed that if current fishing trends continue, all fish stocks will crash by 2048. This was a huge wake up call to many countries around the world and it made global headlines. Another paper said that we’re “fishing down the food web” and projected that soon we’d only have jellyfish to eat! Should these bold claims be taken seriously? In this week’s Untamed Science video Rob takes a look at the state of fisheries in an effort to help answer this question.

About Untamed Science

Produced and hosted by a diverse crew of science-expert-videographers, these lively, flexible videos can be used to introduce a topic, reinforce concepts, or simply add some fun to a lesson presentation.

• “Untamed Science” Educational Video Series Named as a Finalist for “Best Children’s Program” at the International Wildlife Film Festival
• Take a look at some of the additional Untamed Science videos OLE contains.

Inky Fool Poetry Post
Language blogger Mark Forsyth at The Inky Fool blog has a fantastic experiment in which he cites the 50 most-quoted lines of poetry, according to Google. This concept is a great way to get students to engage with poetry in a contemporary context, and some of the results are really surprising! Would you have guessed that Shakespeare doesn’t make it into the top ten? Looking at a fun list like this can help your students realize just how present poetry is all around them (and all around the internet). As a classroom activity, try setting up a similar activity searching for the most-quoted lines in a particular poem. This would make a great interdisciplinary activity with a math class, learning how to graph the findings.

We recommend The Inky Fool blog for all language lovers!

Kinetic Typography Poems
Kinetic Typography – the trend of animating text to accompany a spoken track – is one of the coolest intersections of the written, the auditory, and the visual that’s been made possible by the digital age. A quick search can yield kinetic typography videos for everything from movie monologues to comedy routines to poetry. One of my favorites is this poem, entitled “Minimalism,” by Jeff Smith-Luedke. You can also find a lot of classics – Frost, Dickinson, Byron, etc. The great thing about combining kinetic typography visuals with poetry is that it allows the text itself to emphasize the different feelings and connotations of each word, keeping students engaged with the poem on a deeper level than a simple read-aloud-and-follow-along exercise. Many of the kinetic typography videos on YouTube were created as school projects, and if your technology-savvy students like this format for poetry, you can encourage them to create one of their own for their favorite poem.

The Writer’s Almanac
As I mentioned in my post on podcasts for teaching and learning, The Writer’s Almanac is a great reminder to your students to be engaged with poetry each and every day. Listen to it to warm them up at the beginning of class, or you could even use it as an inspiration for your students to research and share their own literary and historical notes and poem for the day. Set up a schedule for the whole year where each day a student presents interesting historical tidbits from that day in history and shares a favorite poem. This presentation could be recorded and released as a podcast, or simply read in front of the rest of the class or even over the announcements to the whole school. In addition to making engagement with poetry and history a daily activity, this activity will foster good research skills and make students more comfortable with public speaking.

The Haiku Foundation App
In addition to the poetry-related apps outlined in our free eBook apps article, the Haiku App from The Haiku Foundation is a wonderful tool for iPad-equipped classrooms. Students can scroll through hundreds of beautiful haiku, from the classic masters (Basho, Buson, Issa) to the contemporary (Paul David Mena, Bridget Cougar). By gaining exposure to the vast multitude of haiku writers and styles, students can move past the idea of the haiku as simply a count of syllables. Use this app to inspire students to write their own haiku, then assemble the class collection into a powerpoint or other presentation that the group can share, inspired by the app’s layout.

Keep Sharing

Any more great ideas for how to keep students interested in poetry all year round? Share them in the comments!

OLE + Gooru = Awesome!

Your content library just exploded with additional open educational resources  from Gooru now available in OLE. We’ve partnered with Silicon Valley non-profit Gooru, a search engine for learning materials created by educators just like you, to leverage Gooru’s powerful search capabilities.  This enhancement will provide OLE subscribers with the ability to search and access both standards-based Pearson content and high-quality learning resources from Gooru’s search results, all in one place.

Add Links to Your Favorite Websites

We know that there are tons of great websites, resources, and tools out there that you’ve discovered on your own. Now you can add links to your favorite websites and resources to My Library for easy access when teaching or to assign them to your students.

How can adding links to your favorite websites help you?

• Keep all of your teaching materials in one place – no more searching year after year for that one website with that perfect video from last year.
• Did you find a great article in your OLE RSS feed that you want to share with your students? Now you can add the link to the article to My Library and assign it to your students.
• Do you keep a classroom blog? Add the link to your blog to your My Library for easy access.

Students Can Now Add Links to Their Assignments

Authentic Learning is learning that takes place in the real-world. It is hands-on, project-oriented, experiential, global, collaborative, and relevant.  That’s why we opened up the possibilities for students to demonstrate and share their learning using the tools that work best for them. Students can now add links to their assignments. Imagine the possibilities for student research, project-based learning and collaboration!

Ideas for using student links

• Research Assignments: Have students provide a link to a website to support their research
• Class Blog:  Create a class blog and have students submit links to their blog articles
• Google Docs:  Have students collaborate using Google docs and submit links to their shared documents
• Multimedia Production: There are tons of great FREE tools for students to create engaging multimedia projects. Most tools allow you to share your final masterpiece by providing a link. Now students can submit their links to their YouTube video, Prezi  or Haiku Deck presentation, Thinglink interactive image, or VoiceThread. The possibilities are endless!

 

About Online Learning Exchange

Save time searching for standards-based teaching resources.  Pearson’s Online Learning Exchange is a supplemental web- and mobile-ready learning environment featuring quality, standards-based K-12 content from Pearson, our partners, and the best of the web. To check out OLE’s latest features and more, sign up for a free 30-day trial here. OLE: Search Smarter. Love what you find.

 

About Gooru

After working as Director of Engineering at Google, Dr. Prasad Ram created Gooru, a free search engine for learning. “Students and faculty are increasingly relying on digital learning resources and would like to spend more time learning rather than sorting through millions of videos and websites for a given topic,” said Dr. Prasad Ram, CEO of Gooru. “The integration of content from Pearson and high-quality web resources from Gooru in a single platform provides immediate access to the most appropriate learning resources for Pearson users.”

The Week in Rap: May 3, 2013

Week in Rap subscribers have access to the all-inclusive, browser-based, interactive version of the Week in Rap music video, which includes lyrics, links to news sources, and assessment activities. Subscribers also have access to discrete versions of those assets that can be saved to your OLE library or downloaded for offline use. Check out the latest Week in Rap video below.

About Flocabulary

Flocabulary is an online learning platform that delivers educational hip-hop songs and videos to students in grades K–12. Founded in 2004, Flocabulary is now used in over 15,000 schools and reaches a weekly audience of 5 million students. Its mission is to motivate students and help them reach their full academic potential, not only by raising test scores, but also by fostering a love of learning in every child. Flocabulary’s award-winning songs, videos, and accompanying lessons are proven to engage students and raise scores on state reading tests.

To Subscribe

Want to see what all the buzz is about? Email ole@pearson.com to get in touch with your local Pearson Account Executive today to inquire about purchasing the Week in Rap OLE course for your school or district! Or register for a free 30-day trial of OLE to see for yourself!

Try it for a year!

Flocabulary Week in Rap – 1-year subscription: 0328776432 $1.50 per student

• Special price available if you purchase an OLE subject course with the ‘The Week in Rap’

Flocabulary Week in Rap – add-on value pack – 1 year subscription: 032877670X $1.20 per student

Everyone knows that birds migrate north in the spring and south in the fall. It seems like common knowledge these days. But truth is, we didn’t always have that information. Scientists studying migration have uncovered this information and more, but it’s not as simple as it may seem.

In the past, migration studies have relied on seeing birds show up in new areas, or tagging a bird’s foot and finding it later in other areas. But now, we have the ability to put satellite tags on migrating birds.Take a deeper dive into bird migration this week as the Untamed crew follows a small group of biologists to see what its really like to study birds in the field.

About Untamed Science

Produced and hosted by a diverse crew of science-expert-videographers, these lively, flexible videos can be used to introduce a topic, reinforce concepts, or simply add some fun to a lesson presentation.

• “Untamed Science” Educational Video Series Named as a Finalist for “Best Children’s Program” at the International Wildlife Film Festival
• Take a look at some of the additional Untamed Science videos OLE contains.

You know it’s spring when you see migratory birds returning from their wintering grounds. It’s pretty incredible to think that some of them have crossed expansive deserts, cities, and bodies of water yet still manage to find their way back to the same location every year. In this week’s Untamed Science video we take a look at some of the physics that make these annual migrations possible.

About Untamed Science

Produced and hosted by a diverse crew of science-expert-videographers, these lively, flexible videos can be used to introduce a topic, reinforce concepts, or simply add some fun to a lesson presentation.

• “Untamed Science” Educational Video Series Named as a Finalist for “Best Children’s Program” at the International Wildlife Film Festival
• Take a look at some of the additional Untamed Science videos OLE contains.

Overview

In this Authentic Learning lesson plan, students will use what they learn about the water cycle, pollution, the Great Garbage Patch, and recycling to create a proposal for how they can reduce waste both locally and globally. Here are some of the essential questions that students will answer during this lesson:

• What is a citizen’s responsibility to the community and the greater environment?
• How does knowledge of natural areas increase environmentally responsible choices of community members?

You can get a sneak peak at some of the activities in this lesson below.

Download the entire detailed Authentic Learning lesson plan.

Throughout the lesson you’ll see this symbol to indicate content that is from the Middle Grades Earth Science course available through Pearson’s Online Learning Exchange. You can request a free trial of OLE to discover additional teaching and learning resources – go to http://www.olecommunity.com/trial.

Engage & Discover

The Majestic Plastic Bag – A Mockumentary – Truth or Fiction

Have your class watch The Majestic Plastic Bag – A Mockumentary video. At the end of the video ask students to predict which aspects of the video are true and which aspects they think are false or exaggerated. You can use an online discussion board or other web 2.0 tool to have students document their predictions. Have students revisit their predictions throughout the lesson to document how their learning is evolving.

Build Background Knowledge

Use the following resources to build your students’ background knowledge on the history of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, ocean currents, and recycling.

Untamed Science Ecology Video: The Pacific Garbage Patch (Video)

The Untamed Science crew explores claims that there’s a large floating body of trash in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas.

Ocean Currents Interactive (Simulation)

This interactive found on Goorulearning.org from NSTA allows students to simulate ocean and wind currents individually or simultaneously.

Natural Resources Interactivity: Recycled Materials (Interactivity)

This interactivity helps students learn the ways in which materials are recycled to produce new items.

Make Connections

State of the State

Show your students the announcement from UNESCO that as of April 11, 2013, the Garbage Patch, which consists of five areas of man-made rubbish in the seas North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, and Indian Ocean, will become a new federal state known as Garbage Patch State. Ask students why they think it was necessary for UNESCO to go to such great lengths in order to help clean up the Garbage Patch.

Apply Understanding

Inspire Change: How the Oceans Can Clean Themselves

Show your students the TEDxDelft video How the Oceans Can Clean Themselves from 18-year-old Boyan Slat on his revolutionary idea for how we can clean up the garbage patch. After the video, discuss with your students whether or not they think that his idea will work. Be sure they site evidence to support their arguments. From here, begin to brainstorm additional ideas that may help in the clean up effort.

Share Knowledge

Garbage Patch Cleanup Awareness Campaign

Refer back to Boyan Slat’s idea for cleaning up the garbage patch and show your students how Boyan used crowd funding to raise money to test out his theory. Using whatever medium they would like, have students create an awareness campaign for their Garbage Patch Cleanup proposals. Below are some ideas for how your students can share their campaign with others to get the word out.

• Write a blog using Kidblog
• Create a video and post it to SchoolTube
• Host an event at your school for your students to present their proposals and invite members of the community including interested members of your local government

Playback

Reflect on Experiences

Have students reflect on their understanding using the learning objectives they defined at the beginning of the lesson. Ask them these questions:

• Where have I been?
• Where am I now?
• Where am I going?
• How am I going to get there?
• What am I willing to commit to in order to continue raising awareness about cleaning up the great Garbage Patch?