Kendra's Elementary Science Methods 1 Blog

This week in lab, we talked about the 8 characteristics of living things. These characteristics include being made of cells, producing energy, responding to the environment, maintaining a constant internal state, reproducing, inheriting genetic information, moving, and growing and changing. The image above shows how a flower is a living thing and explains each of the 8 characteristics.  I was able to relate this information back to what I have learned in previous science classes. I have learned about these characteristics before, but it was nice to get a refresher and go back to the basics. I have not taken a science class in a while, so I found this review helpful.  I can apply this to my future teaching because I want to teach kindergarteners, and this is something simple and basic that I can teach to my students. Today in lab we also germinated lentil seeds, and I think this would be a great experiment to do with my students. It was very easy to set up, and I think elementa...

The first activity we did in class was to draw out our vision of what we wanted our future classroom to look like. One thing that my partner and I drew was groups of desks so our students could grow connections with their peers and collaborate and work together on projects. We also decided to incorporate flexible seating so that our students could move around in the classroom when they wanted to get out of their seats.  Another thing we talked about today in class was the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). We talked about the three different dimensions within the standards. The three different dimensions are science and engineering practices (SEP), crosscutting concepts (CCCs), and Disciplinary core ideas (DCI). I had never heard of the NGSS, so it was interesting to learn about it for the first time and really dive into all the different aspects of the standards.  Learning about these standards today is going to make my life as a future elementary teacher so much easie...