The Gizmo Gazette

News from ExploreLearning.com
September 2010 — Back to School Edition

This newsletter is full of great information on Gizmos and the latest goings on at ExploreLearning:

Enhanced Curriculum Material for all Science Gizmos

Reminder About Help Center Improvements

Expert's Corner: Back-to-school Inquiry Activities

Gizmo Educator of the Month

Job Opportunity: California Sales Executive

Follow ExploreLearning on Twitter

Enhanced Curriculum Material for all Science Gizmos

We have been enhancing the curriculum materials that accompany each Gizmo. Updated lesson materials now include Teacher Guides, Student Explorations, Answer Keys, and Vocabulary Sheets. Each document is available as a PDF or as a Word document that you can customize if you wish. We have completed updates on almost all of our science Gizmos now, and we're gearing up to dive into the math Gizmos!

Check out some of the Gizmos with enhanced curriculum materials, such as RNA and Protein Synthesis, Energy of a Pendulum, Relative Humidity, Heat Transfer by Conduction and Ocean Mapping.

Plus as you may recall all 80 "purple" Gizmos now have a demo movie! These Gizmo videos are brief (2-3 minute) "how-to" movies that show you what each Gizmo can do, and how you can interact with it. Click on the 'Demo' button at the bottom of the left side bar of any purple Gizmo to watch one.

Lesson Materials, Gizmo recommendations and Shared Class Gizmo Lists are available to ExploreLearning subscribers and free trialers, based on "What I Teach" settings. They are customized just for your teaching. Take a FREE 30-day trial and learn more about these features.

Reminder About Help Center Improvements

If you have not been to ExploreLearning.com lately, you may have missed the updated look and organization of our Help Center. Some of the updates you may notice include:

New topic pages to help organize existing help

Help movies integrated with text help

New Search field – searches the Help Center only

A handful of new help entries related to recent changes
(such as Community Features)

We hope this makes getting help that much easier!

Expert's Corner: Back-to-school Inquiry Activities

Bridget Mulvey is a science education doctoral student at the University of Virginia. Bridget holds a master's degree in geological sciences from Indiana University at Bloomington, and she taught middle school, high school and college science before starting her doctoral program. Bridget has taught professional development workshops on scientific inquiry and the nature of science and has presented research on whole class inquiry and the nature of science to researchers and teachers at national conferences.

As school gets back into full swing, teachers seek ways to engage students in science and set the tone for the year. One great way to do this is through scientific inquiry instruction using Gizmos!

Whether you're a pro or just getting started, Gizmos support your efforts to develop a positive classroom environment that facilitates inquiry. The simple and fun Pattern Finder Gizmo is accessible to young students yet can still be a great whole-class warm-up activity for older students.

Students observe, predict and then test predictions to identify patterns in frogs' jumps from lily pad to lily pad. Framing students' investigation with a research question such as, "What patterns can you identify in the frogs' jumps?" is a great first step toward inquiry. Students use observations as evidence that they analyze to answer the initial question.

This minds-on activity requires almost no initial scientific content knowledge and therefore offers all students a chance to be meaningful contributors to the class. This helps students see that science is fun and that they can do it.

Because pattern identification helps us make sense of the natural world, this activity can spark great discussions about the nature of science. For example, you could ask students if it is always possible for scientists to perform experiments. This discussion can highlight that direct experiments are not the only way we learn about the natural world. To learn about things out of our immediate reach, such as Earth's history or the cosmos, we can't control variables to actually experiment. When experiments can be performed, however, they are an essential part of science.

For more content-specific Gizmos appropriate for the beginning of the year, try Density Experiment: Slice and Dice. This updated take on a density lab lets students explore a big misconception about density — that size matters. To make this activity inquiry, pose a question such as, "What relationship does size have to mass, volume and density?"

In this Gizmo, students "slice" off portions of aluminum, wood or other material and compare volume, mass and density for different-sized pieces. Students analyze this information to determine the relationships and thereby answer the research question.

These Gizmos support minds-on investigations that involve students in the processes of science. They also encourage students' input, helping students gain confidence in their scientific abilities. What a great way to begin the school year!

Gizmo Educator of the Month

Wayne Worthley has been teaching science at Redland Middle School in Florida's Miami-Dade County Public Schools for fifteen years. He teaches several mainstream science sections and vocational agri-science, and he has been using Gizmos since Miami-Dade first partnered with ExploreLearning in 2006.

Although Wayne uses Gizmos in a variety of ways, a favorite is to incorporate Gizmos into his curriculum as reinforcement. He believes Gizmos really help students gain a deeper understanding of science concepts covered by the Florida standards and their science textbook. Wayne often has half of his class work on understanding concepts through Gizmos and the other half through lab activities or writing assignments. This way, students are engaged in a variety of activities to study, and they can break up a long two-hour class period.

Wayne also shared the outstanding results he has seen in his students using Gizmos in preparation for their 2009 science FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test).

“In 2009, I taught about 75 students in Earth Space Science. About 67% of them scored a three or better on the 8th grade science FCAT (state average was only 41%), and I attribute much of their success to the many science Gizmos that they were exposed to that year.”

Wayne especially appreciates the Earth and Space Science Gizmos. His favorite is the Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun Gizmo because it visually explains concepts such as day length, sunrise and sunset, temperature, and seasonal change, which are really difficult without great models. Wayne has students use the Gizmo to observe from the perspective of a point near a pole, then run a simulation of a 24-hour period. Students can directly compare the sun's position on the horizon with the alignment of the bodies in space. Even though he also shows them videos of the phenomenan in Barrow, Alaska, he says that students are amazed to watch the Gizmo's simulation of perpetual summer daylight and perpetual winter night.

Job Opportunity: California Sales Executive

If you have a passion for Gizmos and a successful background in sales to the education market, you may be interested in learning more about our California Sales Executive position.

If this isn't a job for you, then perhaps you know the right person. Feel free to pass along this opportunity. You can even forward this newsletter with a simple web form.

Follow ExploreLearning on Twitter

In case you didn't recognize the little "t" icon at the top of our newsletter, ExploreLearning is now on Twitter! Our "handle" is easy to remember: you can find us at @ExploreLearning.

Follow us to get real-time updates on Gizmos, the world of Math and Science, and even what's happening here in our Charlottesville, VA headquarters office. And if you tweet something about Gizmos, we're likely to re-tweet your message to our growing list of followers.

As always, if you have a question or comment about Gizmos, don't hesitate to contact our Customer Support team. We would love to hear from you. Also, take a look at ExploreLearning News on the front page of the website for breaking news any time.