Perhaps you’ve used the “Favorite Websites” feature of SciLinks, in which you can create lists of websites to share with students.
The new Quiz Manager takes this a step further. You can create questions for a particular website in the SciLinks database and assign students to complete them. You would need to have a class roster first, and then you’re ready to start. There are mini-tutorials on SciLinks that guide you through the process of creating question banks and show what the student activity looks like. You can create “selected response” items (multiple-choice, T/F, matching) and short-answer response questions. After the student is finished with the assignment, the teacher gets a report on how students answered the items and can comment and grade the short-answer ones.

Teachers can work together to create and share a common item bank for a website, or you can choose to keep the questions just for your class.
I’m thinking of how I would use this feature. I was never a big fan of the “read the chapter and answer the questions at the end” type of assignment, unless the students knew there was a specific purpose (e.g., review or preview). While taking a SciLinks “quiz,” the student can have the web page open, so questions for which you expect the students to have memorized the answer would not be appropriate. But I could see this used as an application assessment:

• Apply a unit concept or vocabulary to information on the web. What type of rock is pictured here? a. igneous  b. sedimentary c. metamorphic
• Interpret a graph. The independent variable in this experiment is ___.  a. the elapsed time b. the height of the plant   c. the amount of water provided.
• Gather student reflections, feedback, or questions about the information on a site. What characteristics did this scientist exhibit in her study? or What do you think was the most difficult part of this simulation

Feel free to add a comment with other suggestions for using this tool!
Extra value alert: The tutorials were created with Jing—a free online application that captures screens, cursor movements, and voice and creates a file that can be added to a website or blog. I’ve used this for tutorials and demonstrations. The basic version is free (and fun to play with).

I read Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain at just the right time in my life—young enough to believe that I could live in the woods like Sam and old enough to try some of the living-off-the-land strategies he used (while I still lived comfortably at home). Her writing and illustrations taught me while transporting me to another place and I’ve also learned from and enjoyed her other books.
She has been awarded the 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Books and Films Lifetime Achievement Award.  Adults and older children will enjoy listening to a podcast interview with Jean Craighead George on the AAAS’s Book Talks.
Peggy

I’ve just been hired for my first teaching position as a high school biology teacher. I’m excited, but a little apprehensive. What can I do now to get ready, before I get access to the school?
—Grace, Little Rock, Arkansas
Congratulations, and welcome to the teaching profession! You’ll get your class lists and the key to your classroom/lab. But there are many things you can do now before your official start (this is also true for readers who are looking for a position). There are many books and websites with tips for new teachers, but science teachers have additional challenges in terms of managing a laboratory, maintaining inventories, following safety requirements, and staying current with the content.
Ask for a copy of the district science curriculum and copies of the textbook and teacher guide. Familiarize yourself with the content topics, big ideas, essential questions, learning objectives, activities, and assessments. Highlight the equipment and materials you’ll need for the first unit, so you can make sure you have what you need to get started when you have access to the building. Explore NSTA’s SciLinks to start your own lists of websites related to the curriculum to share with your students. If you notice any gaps in your content knowledge, check out NSTA’s Learning Center for Science Objects, archived webinars, and podcasts on a variety of topics.

Download a copy of your state’s academic standards for science to learn what the expectations are for your subject or grade level. Your state probably has a site that summarizes the standardized test scores for your school, too. Look for the school’s “report card” that describes its Adequate Yearly Progress and demographic data.
Find out what basic safety equipment is in the lab. This affects what kind of activities you can plan. Ask ahead of time if notebooks and other consumable materials have been ordered. Once the school year starts, it’s often hard to get things that are not in inventory. Ask what technology will available to you in the classroom, such as an interactive white board, “clickers,” probeware, cameras, or projection attachments for microscopes. If the school does not provide a laptop you can take home, invest in some USB flash drives you can use to take files to work on at home.
Use the district website to learn about your school and the other schools in the district. Look at the current calendar to get a sense of when events such as open houses and holiday breaks occur. Check out the student and faculty handbooks if they are online to learn about the procedures you’ll have to follow. Look at how other teachers have structured their district webpages. Start to plan what you’ll put on yours, including an introduction to your professional background and your interests related to science.
Visit the community if you’re not already familiar with it, both in person and online. Learn about the local history and explore any museums, parks, or nature centers in the region. Check out the science programs and resources at any nearby colleges and universities. Note the location of the public library and whether your students have access to it.
Begin to assemble your professional resources. Some science teachers like to wear a lab coat or apron, and you may want to have your own goggles rather than use the student ones. If you’re not already a member, take advantage of NSTA’s discounted membership rate for new teachers. You’ll get a subscription to The Science Teacher and access to NSTA’s other journals and archives, NSTA Reports with news updates and resources, and access the NSTA Communities and email lists. Even if you lurk for a while, you’ll learn from the amazing teachers who post there. Browse back issues of The Science Teacher for ideas and suggestions. Create your professional library with titles from NSTA publications and add these to your summer reading list. There are so many to choose form—I’d recommend starting with Investigating Safely: A Guide for High School Teachers, NSTA Guide to Planning Science Facilities (which has suggestions for organizing materials as well as safety guidelines), The Biology Teacher’s Handbook, and Science Formative Assessment.
This would also be a good time to purge any social media sites of inappropriate information or photos. Whether we like it or not, teachers are considered role models and held to a higher standard of decorum and behavior.
I’ve heard the most important goal of a first-year teacher is to become a second-year teacher. You’ll have lots of challenges, but you have a community of science teachers who are willing to help. You’re wise to start preparing now.
Any other suggestions for Grace? Add a comment.
Photograph: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/12/18636595_f09160199c.jpg

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As the revision of the national science education standards gets started, many educators, administrators, parents, and other community members will be concerned not just the final product, but how the final product will be decided.
Henry Kepner, Jr., president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, shared his observations from the development of the Common Core Standards in Mathematics—and possible implications for science educators—in the May issue of NSTA Reports.
Read “A Math Perspective on the Common Core Standards Initiative” online now.

There was a farm set on the light table and there were tadpoles in an aquarium nearby. One child (in the Green Frog class of course) was taken with the frog-to-tadpole sequence models and wanted to add them to the farm set-up. I asked, “Don’t they need some water?” and he said he would add a pond. He got blue paper, another child drew the oval pond shape, and another cut it out, each one contributing their expertise. Somehow that developed into making a model of a weather system (I missed the connection) and one child added a storm cloud, puddle, lightning, and thunder, all represented with paper shapes which they allowed me to label.
Then they hung the rain clouds over the light table using pipecleaners taped to the bookcase and the play began in earnest. Wish I had taken more photos. When I shared with the parents one of them replied, “I’m so glad you let me know about this! I asked my child about it at breakfast this morning, and he went into a ten minute, detailed explanation. Wish I had been there to see it—thanks for the pictures!”
Read more about connecting your students to changes in the weather in the April/May 2010 Young Children. In the Methods & Strategies column, “Making the Climate Connection,” Bruce Larson writes about beginning teaching about climate by teaching about weather and about “learning progressions”—the order in which students can best learn and understand science concepts. The column is chock full of resources for K-1, 2-3 and 4-5, as well as adult learners, with additional resources listed online.
Take a look!
Peggy

This year I have challenged myself to use only local animals in the classroom, for budget and ecological reasons.
Luckily for me and my students, Cabbage White and Black Swallowtail butterflies go through their life cycle to adulthood in our area before the end of the school year and can easily be found on collard and fennel plants which wintered over (were planted in the fall and survive through the winter). I’ve also found the Cabbage White butterfly eggs on collard seedlings which I had washed thoroughly and set out in the yard.

Hoping to find a shortcut, I set out collard leaves from the grocery in a jar of water, but even though I had trimmed the stem ends, the leaves drooped from lack of water by the end of the day—not a very promising site to lay eggs! With two stands of five fennel plants each, and 3 packages of collard seedlings, I’ve been able to supply 15 classrooms with caterpillars and eggs.
Take a look…

She was repeatedly coming to the plants, landing for just a short time, then flying to another place on the fennel—I just wasn’t quick enough with the camera.


There were also aphids and another animal that is rounder with a tough exoskeleton that I haven’t been able to identify on the collard seedlings. These I washed off the leaves to leave more for the caterpillar. If I were teaching older children I would leave all the animals on the leaves and have the students research to identify them. I’m curious if the aphids, unknown round insect and the caterpillars happily co-exist or if they compete.

I brought some Cabbage white butterfly caterpillars into the house because it was due to storm the next morning and I wanted to take some to school. The next afternoon I noticed a pupa in chrysalis form on the hallway wall, almost two meters from the collard leaves. What a journey the caterpillar had made to its pupating place!

The children have been very excited to see, and draw butterfly eggs, and the Very Tiny Caterpillars. Many of them tell me (with wide eyes) that the caterpillar will change into a butterfly, something they have learned though reading or a television program. Now I hope that they will learn it through observations. Usually, only a few children remain interested in these relatively slow-moving animals except to comment on the poop. That observation is a good time to talk about what is alive and what is not, and how do we know, to learn what the children are thinking.

Because children do not watch the caterpillars continuously, they may not understand that the chrysalis is not a new animal but just a new form of the caterpillar that they had already seen. Even with prior experience of observing, handling, and counting Tenebrio beetles and larva (“mealworms”) which also form pupa and undergo complete metamorphosis, the children do not immediately accept this. When the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, the children will be interested again. Butterflies can be fed with a sugar water solution for a day or two before being released. Nice to have a place to “borrow” butterfly eggs and babies; nice for the children to see them return to that place, the stand of  fennel plants in the garden.
See my February 17 and May 6, 2009, posts for more information about keeping caterpillars in the classroom.
What are the challenges your classroom has in learning about animals that change as they grow?
Peggy

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico seems to be on everyone’s mind. Even some third-graders I was working with today were talking about it. The major news services are keeping us informed through web articles and photographs as well as traditional television news segments. Blogs and other news sites have current information and images. A recent post on the NSTA blog shared several oil spill resources. A few others to add to the list: EPA Response to BP Spill in the Gulf of Mexico and Google Earth Images.
SciLinks has a collection of websites on the topic of oil spills. Although these are noted for grades 9–12, many of them could be used by younger students. Teachers can also gather background information from them or to provide a context for the current events. The SciLinks collection includes sources such as

• How Oil Drilling Works
• Oiled Wildlife Care Network
• Spill Containment Methods
• What’s the Story on Oil Spills?
• The Effects of Maritime Oil Spills on Wildlife
• How Do You Clean Up an Oil Spill?

This event is being compared to other spills such as a recent on in California and the Exxon Valdez spill that happened more than 20 years ago. NOAA has created a comprehensive look at the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William’s Oily Mess This site is designed as a classroom resource with lesson plans, inquiry activities in a real-world context, photographs, readings, and interviews with scientists.
I’ve experienced first hand how fragile our coastal ecosystems are. And I recently visited the Gulf Coast, where I was impressed with its beauty and how productive and valuable the wetlands are. This event truly scares me, with its implications for the ecology and economy of our country.