Middle school science fair projects. Most students in middle school are required to submit a science project to the science fair. For kids who have been used to the more lenient standards of elementary school, the more complicated guidelines can be a shock. Here’s a guide to helping middle schoolers to have success as they head to the fair.
1. Do the project. This should go without saying, but I get emails all the time asking for something that is already completed. Teachers can tell if you copy and paste information directly from the internet or from a book.
2. Choose the right kind of project. Most of the time, an investigatory project is required. That’s a fancy way of saying that you have to do an experiment that follows the scientific method. Demonstrations, collections, and models are usually not accepted.
3. Be interested in your work. If you like what you’re doing, you’ll learn more. And if you’re learning, your project will show that you are interested.
4. Make sure you include all required elements. Experiment logs, charts, graphs, supply lists and even photographs are often part of the judging at the fair. Make sure that you follow the directions exactly.
5. Have an attractive display. Use bright colors, attractive fonts, interesting props, and clear pictures. Be neat. Come up with a catchy title so you’ll stand out from the crowd.
Sixth grade, seventh grade, and eight grade – three great chances for you to learn more about science and more about making a presentation. Enjoy, learn, and succeed with your middle school science fair project.
Now, get a free guide to middle school science fair projects – including how to find experiments with step by step instructions – at http://www.24hourscienceprojects.com. Easy and fast, they’ll help you submit an outstanding – and maybe winning – middle school science project.
If there is one thing we know about kids, it’s that they have short attention spans and prefer now to later. Teachers, more than any district or schoolwide programs, have the most power to motivate students because they’re on the front lines. They can influence students in a way that kids can actually understand: here, now, today, in this room.
***Obviously, not enough can be said about parent involvement, but that’s a Top 12 list for another day***
In Your Classroom or School
1. Praise Students in Ways Big and Small
Recognize work in class, display good work in the classroom and send positive notes home to parents, hold weekly awards in your classroom, organize academic pep rallies to honor the honor roll, and even sponsor a Teacher Shoutout section in the student newspaper to acknowledge student’s hard work.
2. Expect Excellence
Set high, yet realistic expectations. Make sure to voice those expectations. Set short terms goals and celebrate when they are achieved.
3. Spread Excitement Like a Virus
Show your enthusiasm in the subject & use appropriate, concrete and understandable examples to help students grasp it. For example, I love alliteration. Before I explain the concept to students, we “improv” subjects they’re interested in. After learning about alliteration, they brainstorm alliterative titles for their chosen subjects.
4. Mix It Up
It’s a classic concept and the basis for differentiated instruction, but it needs to be said: using a variety of teaching methods caters to all types of learners. By doing this in an orderly way, you can also maintain order in your classroom. In a generic example for daily instruction, journal for 10 minutes to open class; introduce the concept for 15 minutes; discuss/group work for 15 minutes; Q&A or guided work time to finish the class. This way, students know what to expect everyday and have less opportunity to act up.
5. Assign Classroom Jobs
With students, create a list of jobs for the week. Using the criteria of your choosing, let students earn the opportunity to pick their classroom jobs for the next week. These jobs can cater to their interests and skills. Some possibilities include:
• Post to the Class blog
• Update Calendar
• Moderate review games
• Pick start of class music
• Watch class pet
• Public relations officer (address people who visit class)
• Standard class jobs like Attendance, Cleaning the boards, putting up chairs, etc.
6. Hand Over Some Control
If students take ownership of what you do in class, then they have less room to complain (though we all know, it’ll never stop completely). Take an audit of your class, asking what they enjoy doing, what helps them learn, what they’re excited about after class. Multiple choice might be the best way to start if you predict a lot of “nothing” or “watch movies” answers.
After reviewing the answers, integrate their ideas into your lessons or guide a brainstorm session on how these ideas could translate into class.
On a systematic level, let students choose from elective classes in a collegiate format. Again, they can tap into their passion and relate to their subject matter if they have a choice.
7. Open-format Fridays
You can also translate this student empowerment into an incentive program. Students who attended class all week, completed all assignments and obeyed all classroom rules can vote on Friday’s activities (lecture, discussion, watching a video, class jeopardy, acting out a scene from a play or history).
8. Relating Lessons to Students’ Lives
Whether it is budgeting for family Christmas gifts, choosing short stories about your town, tying in the war of 1812 with Iraq, rapping about ions, or using Pop Culture Printables, students will care more if they identify themselves or their everyday lives in what they’re learning.
9. Track Improvement
In those difficult classes, it can feel like a never-ending uphill battle, so try to remind students that they’ve come a long way. Set achievable, short-term goals, emphasis improvement, keep self-evaluation forms to fill out and compare throughout the year, or revisit mastered concepts that they once struggled with to refresh their confidence.
10. Reward Positive Behavior Outside the Classroom
Tie service opportunities, cultural experiences, extracurricular activities into the curriculum for extra credit or as alternative options on assignments. Have students doing Habitat for Humanity calculate the angle of the freshly cut board, count the nails in each stair and multiply the number of stairs to find the total number of nails; write an essay about their experience volunteering or their how they felt during basketball tryouts; or any other creative option they can come up with.
Beyond the Classroom
The idea of cash incentives is a timely yet controversial topic, so I’d like to look at this attempt to “buy achievement” through a different lens. It seems people are willing to dump some money into schools, so let’s come up with better ways to spend it.
11. Plan Dream Field Trips
With your students, brainstorm potential field trips tiered by budget. Cash incentive money can then be earned toward the field trips for good behavior, performance, etc. The can see their success in the classroom as they move up from the decent zoo field trip to the good state capitol day trip to the unbelievable week-long trip to New York City. Even though the reward is delayed, tracking progress will give students that immediate reward.
12. College Fund Accounts
College dreams motivate athletes; why not adapt the academic track to be just as tangible for hard-working student. One way is to keep a tally of both the cash value and the potential school choice each student has earned. As freshman, they see they’ve earned one semester at the local junior college. By second semester of junior year, they’re going to four-years at State for half the price. By graduation, watch out free ride to their dream school.
Annie Condron is the Editor in Chief at TeachHUB.com and the author of The “Top 12 Ways to Motivate Students” which is part of a new, exciting series made available by TeachHUB.com. This series is meant to provide fun and insight relevant to K-12 education. TeachHUB.com is a new, online resource center designed by teachers, for teachers and is tailored to address the everyday needs of teachers both inside and outside of the classroom.
To view the entire TeachHUB Top 12 series as well as other teacher recommended education tools, visit http://www.TeachHUB.com.
Thanks to advances in technology, we can now actually view the brain as it learns through neuroimaging and brain-mapping studies. This is one of the most exciting areas is brain-based memory research available today.
Based on my background as a neurologist and my experience as a classroom teacher, I’ve created this list of tips for any teacher to integrate brain-based learning strategies. Hopefully, you’ll find these connections between the research and strategies NEURO-LOGICAL.
De-stress
Stress causes the brain intake systems to send information into the Reactive brain (automatic-fight, flight, freeze) and prevents information flow through to the reflective prefrontal cortex where long-term memory is constructed. Supportive classroom communities lower brain stress and open filters for learning. Use consistent rituals such as a class song, student jobs, a smile and a “good morning” greeting.
Grab Attention
Memorable events make memories. Play music when students enter the class and hang posters “advertising” or giving hints about upcoming lessons. Curiosity increases attention and memory. During lessons, dramatic pauses will capture attention.
Color
Have students use colored pens to match the color of your whiteboard markers to emphasize the important information. Use green, yellow, and red in order of importance – like a traffic light.
Novelty
If students experience novelty from demonstrations, video clips, anecdotes, or even the enthusiasm in your voice, their attentive filters focus on the information.
Personal Meaning
Students must care enough about new information or consider it personally important for it to go through the brain filters and be stored as memory. Use information from Interest Surveys to connect students to the material OR use their names and names of their pets or favorite sport when giving math problems).
Relational Memories
The brain only retains working (short-term memory) for a minute unless it connects with prior knowledge. Activate their prior knowledge by having students make predictions and KWL (What I Know, What I Want to Know, What I Learned) charts.
Patterning
The brain is a pattern-seeking organ. When students recognize relationships between new and prior knowledge, their brains can link the new information with a category of existing knowledge for long-term storage. Graphic organizers and making analogies builds patterns.
Mental Manipulation for Long Term Memory
Once the information gets to the prefrontal cortex students must do something with it to build permanent memories. Students can write summaries of new information in their own words. To make these even more personally meaningful, the summaries can be in forms that suit their learning style preferences including graphic organizers, sketches, and diagrams.
Practice Makes Permanent
By using multiple sensory lessons to review material, different neural networks store the knowledge in multiple brain regions. Their brains will build multiple pathways leading to the stored memory, which makes retrieval more efficient.
When a memory has been recalled often, their repeated activation strengthens its neuronal circuits, like exercising a muscle.
SYN-NAPS: Brain-Breaks
After as little as 10 minutes doing the same activity, neurotransmitters, brain transport proteins, needed for memory construction and attention are depleted. Syn-naps are brain-breaks where you change the learning activity to let the brain chemicals replenish. The Syn-naps can be stretching, singing, or acting out vocabulary words.
After just a few minutes, their refreshed brains will be ready for new memory storage.
Judy Willis, M.D., M.Ed. is a neurologist, credentialed teacher, and freelance writer for TeachHUB.com. TeachHUB.com strives to provide educators with the proper tools to overcome the challenges faced daily in the classroom. Each resource is made available by a panel of K-12 teachers to ensure relevant, quality information. This outstanding team of individuals is dedicated to help teachers meet the growing and ever-changing needs in K-12 education. For the latest updates in teaching techniques and classroom strategies, check back daily with www.TeachHUB.com.
As we write this article, the results for the 2009 3rd grade FCAT are not out – but we have already been asked several questions by concerned parents, including:
1- If my child failed the 3rd grade FCAT, will they be retained?
2- If my child failed the 3rd grade FCAT, what private school should I send them to, to avoid 3rd grade retention?
3- If my child failed the 3rd grade FCAT is there another way for them to be promoted?
The FCAT is Florida’s high stakes test – it is also called the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Many smart kids fail the FCAT because:
- They set the standards much higher in 3rd grade
- The test is very tricky – and many adult get the questions wrong
- The pressure is intense
We like to answer the questions from a personal perspective. If our child had just failed the 3rd grade FCAT:
1- Would they be retained?
2- Would I send them to private school and which one?
3- Are there other options?
There are other options. In Broward County, the options include:
1- The teacher having a portfolio that shows your child has mastered the material.
2- Passing 8 mini-benchmarks that show your child has mastered the material.
3- Passing a new standardized test – the BCAP – that Broward County has developed that will be given on July 21st .
The simple answer to the retention question is – Yes, if you do nothing, your child will be retained.
For the first time ever – this test can be taken whether your child attended summer school or did not – private help is an option.
There are private options – and this may be your best option.
The private school options do exist. Specialized schools like Lighthouse Pointe Academy (LPA at North Broward Preparatory School), American Heritage Academy that is associated with American Heritage Schools, and Kentwood Preparatory Schools are 3 options and other private schools are also options.
We are big believers in public schools – -and recommend you consider what you can do to help your child be promoted to 4th grade.
The three steps you can take are to:
1- Talk with your child’s teacher and find out where your child stands.
2- Find out about summer school and your other options – each county has some flexibility.
3- Consider private options.
When considering FCAT Help, FCAT Tutoring or FCAT Programs, you may want to consider:
1- Do they teach the way your child learns best? – too often programs are logical and sequential – when the child is a right-brained learner – who learns best when they see and experience information
2- Are they focused on passing the test, improving your child’s foundational skills, or both?
3- Do they have a track record of helping kids do extremely well on the test, in school, in life, or in all three areas?
Mira Halpert M.Ed. and Mark Halpert are parent-educators who offer private options for parents with smart struggling children at their 3D Learner Center in Boca Raton, FL. To learn more about their philosophy and for more information visit our web page at http://www.3dlearner.com
or call Mira and Mark at 561-361-7495.
Gurgaon schools have the general reputation of being institutions of good standard when compared with most of the schools in the Delhi NCR. Owing to the general development of the region, a good number of schools are coming up every academic year.In consequence of the growing literacy and general awareness and standard of living, school dropout incidence is increasingly on the decline in the Gurgaon region.
Before obtaining admission for their children in any Gurgaon school, parents/guardians of Gurgaon region should study the profile of each school. The details, data and other relevant information pertaining to each school are available in many websites.First of all, make an over all study of these schools from a second hand source.Then, you can shortlist the schools of your choice. Then make a personal visit to each of the short-listed schools on a working day. Gather information on the campus from your own observation and from teachers, students and others related with the school as well as from the neighborhood. Record the points of observation with respect to different parameters on a comparable table/chart.You will find it easy to arrive at the ideal school in Gurgaon to send your children.
You may think why I should recommend you to pay so much attention for seeking admission in a school. It is said that the quality of teaching, training and grooming that we gain at the early stage of life can make all the difference in our life. That is, I say, the quality of the school where your child studies is of more significance to the child’s future life is concerned than anything else. Hence, for your guidance, I can recommend to you some of the schools in Gurgaon.
The following Gurgaon schools have been reportedly doing well with respect to academic standards: Ryan International School,Sector 40; Delhi Public School, Sector 29 & Sector 45; Amity International School, Sector 46; The Shri Ram School, Aravali; The Shri Ram School, Moulsari Avenue; Excelsior American School, C-2 Block, Sushant Lok, Phase-1; Salwan PublicSchool, Sector 15; The Heritage School, Adj Sector 56; D.A.V. Public School, Sector 14; Shalom Hills International School, Sushant Lok; Our Lady Of Fatima Convent School, DLF colony; Summer Fields School, DLF City; Kendriya Vidyalaya, AFS Gurgaon; Blue Bells Model School; Chiranjiv Bharati School, Sushant Lok; Shalom Hills International School, Sushant Lok; G D Goenka World School, Sohna Road; etc.
These Gurgaon schools have been rated to be of sophisticated infrastructure and ideal ambience for nurturing he young minds.Of course, there other ongoing and upcoming schools in Gurgaon which conform to good academic standards. You may take your own initiative to locate them.
Martinez is currently working as an expert author for education related matters in Gurgaon like how to get suitable school for your child.
