I must say that my mantra is “Never stop learning.” I try to instill this in my students and I live my life by it. I say that to lead into the topic of summer investigations.

This summer I am taking College Physics I & II, just because I want to (yes, I know I am strange, weird, a geek…insert your own word…I know and you don’t have to tell me). I have also started my masters in Secondary Education in Science. So far I am two and a half weeks through Physics I and I have two days in my masters class left. I want to discuss this masters class.

In this class, we have done some really cool stuff. It is counted as an elective in my masters program, it is with the Texas Regional Collaborative in Science. (Another topic I will discuss later.) This year we have learned how to use Google Earth 5.0 to create “field trips” to use in your class. We have also gone on two hands-on field trips (to be able to make a couple of example field trips on the program).

We also have learned how to build podcasts and movies with Adobe Premiere. This is by far the coolest! I can know create movies to show in my class that I have created specific to my curriculum, rather than having to accept and use the cookie cutter videos that are out there. Sure those have their place, but you need to understand from a classroom teacher prospective, I want to have a way to teach my class even on days where I am off learning some other new technology or practice. This allows me to do this. I can record my lecture along with all the visual materials and leave a file for the sub to play for my class.

There is also a scientific experiment also. Will my kids be better behaved when I leave my voice behind? Will that little part of me help them remember our class goals? We will have to wait and see.

The field trips were fossil hunts in the Dallas area. We went to the Sulphur River in Ladonia and then today we went to Arlington to help excavate the Dino Dig. Both of these were cool (NOT in temperature! That was HOT). It was interesting to go and search for fossils, but it was also very cool to see erosion and weathering in action. At both sites, the recent rains had helped to shift the dirt and expose the fossils.

The fossils are much more abundant than you would think. Some things like trace fossils (evidence of previous life, like burrows) and things like clams and oysters are very easy to find. Other things like bones and crocodile scoots (the “scales” on the back of crocs, they haven’t changed a whole lot over the eons) are MUCH more difficult to find and usually the guy next to you is insanely lucky to find a whole pile while you just keep scraping away at black clay. 🙂

I am still processing the information from all this learning and I still have two more days to go! I am thinking my summer investigations are off to a rip-roaring start. What about you? What kind of summer investigations are you planning? Or what have you already done?

~Ms. O