What would happen if you could dive in and out of any particular moment of time within a brilliantly conceived visual interface that marries Prezi with the universe? Well, I’m not sure, but I bet it would look something like ChronoZoom.
I know it sounds silly or cliché but ChronoZoom (www.ChronoZoomproject.org) is really jaw dropping! ChronoZoom takes a 13.7 billion year timeline and makes it fast, easy, and intuitive to move through the history of the universe (or the earth, or humanity, or the industrial revolution) at whatever scale and speed you like.  One moment you are at the beginnings of chemical complexity, the next you are the origins of agriculture.

For many of the “thresholds” there are resources that can be zoomed into providing images, text, and movies.

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ChronoZoom was funded by Microsoft Research Connections in collaboration with University California at Berkeley and Moscow State University (the one in Russia, not Idaho) Although it is still mostly empty space, that is something that will change rapidly as it gains traction across the curriculum.
As a free tool, ChronoZoom runs in a web browser like most other websites except the experience is dramatically more interactive.  The project is built on HTML 5 coding that allows it to run on almost any modern web browsing device, and movement around the timeline is smooth, fairly seamless, and best of all in my opinion is that it takes advantage of gesture-input devices giving it a much more natural flow then possible by a mouse alone.
According to the website, “ChronoZoom is an open source community project dedicated to visualizing the history of everything to bridge the gap between the humanities and sciences using the story of Big History to easily understand all this information.”

When zoomed into a topic or “threshold,” the available media presents itself and can be further zoomed into for consumption.

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ChronoZoom reeks with potential including the suggested possibilities listed on the site such as:

• Ability to create my personal canvas/timeline/tours
• Ability to generate internal user bookmarks
• Generate a chart dynamically and place it where I want on the timeline
• Display curve and segmented line graphs, plot of events coded for magnitude
• Phylogenetic trees
• Svg drawing
• Filter Exhibits based on subject
• Choose data from data library
• Customize time direction up and down, down to up, left to right, right to left
• Comparison of timeline, Comparison of data, Comparison of data and timelines
• Ability to share my timeline or tour with others via social networking
• Ability to show uncertainty of dates (+/-)
• Ability to show a time range and not only just a specific date in time
• Ability to show multiple interpretations
• Ability to show geo-spacial data

While the traditional applications of ChronoZoom in the classroom are many, it will be the as-yet unimagined uses that will rock education. So take ChronoZoom for a ride and post your travel adventures here.
 

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The teachers on our team all have different homework policies which confuses our students and their parents. Do you have any suggestions to help us become more consistent?
–Jacob from Virginia
My views on homework evolved throughout my years in the classroom, as I came to understand my students better and improve my instructional strategies. Rather than suggestions, I’ll offer some reflections to stimulate discussion with your colleagues. I suggest, however, that you examine some of the research on the effectiveness of homework (for example, the book Rethinking Homework has a chapter on this topic). I’ve created a resource collection with summaries of research studies and other readings.
Perception of homework’s value is mixed. Teachers who don’t assign homework are considered “easy,” regardless of what their in-class expectations. Teachers who give a lot are “rigorous,” even if the assignments are trivial, unnecessary, or unrelated to the learning goals. Some parents demand homework for their children, others make excuses or even do the assignments for the student. Some schools have formulas as to how much homework is appropriate (X minutes multiplied by the grade level), homework hotlines, and homework sessions at the end of a marking period for students to recoup some points toward their grades.
I once had lunch with teachers at an elementary school where their discussion centered on consequences for students who didn’t complete homework. The options included keeping students after school, reducing their grades, keeping them in at recess, calling parents, issuing demerits, or giving “gotcha” quizzes.  They also discussed whether to accept late assignments. But not one teacher mentioned the value or purpose of the assignments.
I observed a class where the “homework” was a find-a-word on the planets (it must have been an oldie—Pluto was still listed as the ninth planet) and a maze “Help the Astronaut Find His Spaceship.” I have no idea what the learning goals were for this busywork, but I suspect that if students did not do these worksheets, they would have suffered the “consequences.”

If a learning activity, such as completing a worksheet or study guide, is completed in class, it’s called classwork, but completed outside of class it’s categorized as homework and weighted differently toward a grade. The same activity is awarded points based on where and when it is to be completed, not on how it helps students with the learning goals. And I’m puzzled by students who claim that they finish all of their homework in class—is the assignment then reconsidered classwork?
I’m concerned when homework used as a punishment: “If you don’t settle down, you’ll have homework this evening.” Or when lack of homework is used as a reward: “You’ve all behaved very well today, so there will be no homework” or “You can earn a ‘get out of homework’ pass for doing Z,” a behavior unrelated to the learning goals.
What about students who don’t have support at home? Do all your students have parents who help or encourage them? Do they have access to technology, a quiet place free from interruptions and distractions, or even something as simple as a box of pencils and paper? How should students juggle homework with other meaningful activities such as music lessons, sports, family events and responsibilities, community activities, afterschool jobs, or personal interests?
What if we gave students ideas for pursuing topics of interest outside of school rather than busywork for its own sake—options such as reading lists, videos, or other science-related activities that engage students without the “grade” component?
However, it might be reasonable to ask students to practice skills, finish a lab report started in class, review the content presented in class, or prepare for a lesson (e.g., videos, podcasts, readings). You might be interested in learning more about the “flipped classroom” model (follow #flipclass on Twitter).
Some suggest homework teaches students to be responsible, but it seems this lesson is not learned very well. Teachers of juniors and seniors still complain about students not doing homework. We should ask what we’re asking students to be responsible for—for making decisions about their learning? Or for complying with the teacher’s directions?
Brian (not his real name), who had a reputation among the seventh grade teachers for not doing homework, gave me a lot to think about one morning when he met me at the door. “Did you see that TV show on spiders last evening?” he asked, referring to a PBS program. He talked nonstop about spiders and mentioned some library books he had read. Obviously something had captured his interest! I wondered what homework did not get done as he pursued his interest in spiders? Were other teachers punishing him for spending time on this rather than on their assignments?
Resource:
Vatterott, C. 2009. Rethinking homework. Alexandria, VA: ASCD
Photograph:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ms_sarahbgibson/1266617074/

A significant challenge that science teachers face is how to help students successfully navigate the bridge from their existing ideas about science concepts to scientifically accepted views. A teacher who uncovers students’ preconceptions about key concepts can use that knowledge to provide learning experiences that support students as they develop richer conceptual understanding. The March 2012 issue of NSTA’s Book Beat highlights resources that can help teachers guide their students on the path from misconceptions to clearer understanding. Page Keeley’s Uncovering Student Ideas in Science Series has been a go-to source for many teachers who want to learn more about what students are thinking about gravity, force and motion, cells, life cycles, and numerous other science topics.
This issue of Book Beat links to two free preview chapters from Page Keeley and Cary Sneider’s brand-new Uncovering Student Ideas in Astronomy. What do your students know—or think they know—about what causes night and day, whether the Moon spins, and what happens to stars when they die? The 45 astronomy probes in the new book provide situations that will pique your students’ interest while helping you evaluate their understanding of how the universe operates. The book covers the broad areas of the nature of planet Earth; the Sun-Earth system; modeling the Moon; dynamic solar system; and stars, galaxies, and the universe. Andrew Fraknoi writes in his Foreword to this new book: “Just like a doctor’s diagnostic tool provides one chemical or physical indicator of our health, each of Keeley and Sneider’s probes measures one or two ideas that lets you know how much surgical repair (if any) might be needed to fix up your students’ astronomical ideas.” For additional resources on misconceptions in science, check out the Everyday Science Mysteries Series; Predict, Observe, Explain; and the Brain-Powered Science Series. Additional NSTA Press resources on astronomy include Project Earth Science: Astronomy, Revised 2^nd Edition; and Earth Science Success: 50 Lesson Plans for Grades 6–9.

How does a change in climate affect an environment and the organisms that live in it? This could be an essential question for an ecology or environmental science unit. Students hear a lot about climate change but may not have made the connection between changes in climate and the resulting impact on water quality, landforms, seasonal migrations, or coastlines.
Generating Arguments About Climate Change Argument in this case is not a yelling match as seen on TV or radio talk shows. Question-Response/Explanation-Evidence and Reasoning describes how to guide students through the process with activities, informational resources,    [SciLinks: Changes in Climate, Modeling Earth’s Climate]
Explaining Four Earth Science Enigmas with a New Hypothesis describes the “airburst theory of an extraterrestrial object that entered the earth’s atmosphere over North America during the last Ice Age, causing fundamental changes in the Northern Hemisphere.” The article has an example of a jigsaw activity and guiding questions for students to examine several puzzling events. The authors also provide a list of resources, including their own site on the topic. The Sixth Great Mass Extinction outlines the possible causes and the results of five previous extinctions (all of which predate human activity) and discusses the current thinking about a sixth extinction occurring now. The article does not have any lesson plans per se, but the authors provide an extensive list of resources on the topic that can be integrated into many science topics. [SciLinks: Mass Extinctions]

Articles such as these and Reconstructing Environmental Change Using Lake Varves as a Climate Proxy reinforce the idea that earth science should be the capstone course in schools—integrating concepts from the life and physical sciences. This article describes how data (proxies) such as lake sediment layers (the varves of the title), annual tree rings, and ice thickness can be used to reconstruct climate patterns of the past. The authors describe a class investigation into paleoclimatology. [SciLinks: Paleontology]
Talk about a coincidence—just as I started reading Why Did the Bald Eagle Almost Become Extinct, I saw one flying over the wetlands behind my house. What a sight, as it soared over the water and landed in a tall tree, its white head gleaming in the sun. And yet it wasn’t that long ago that their future was in question. Using the activity described in this article (which includes a rubric and examples of “evidence”), students learn about the environmental factors that threatened this the existence of this bird. [SciLinks: Bird Adaptations, Bird Characteristics, Food Chains and Food Webs, Endangered Species]
Living downriver from fracking sites, I was very much interested in the article Fracking Fury. The explanation of the process, the map of shale gas locations, and the diagram of how hydraulic fracturing works are valuable resources for any teacher K-12 and for students. Although natural gas may burn cleaner than other fossil fuels, its extraction poses potentially harmful effects on the local environment.
When you pick up this month’s issue, think of the environment in terms of the outdoors. In the guest editorial Reflections on a Classroom Managed Through Inquiry: Moving Past “Nondiscipline” the author very honestly described how she has changed the classroom environment through the type of interactions with students. Most of us would probably like to meet our first year’s students and explain how we are much better teachers now!
Check out the Connections for this issue (March 2012). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, this resource has ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, etc.