Teachers’ Lounge

The California Academy of Sciences is launching two new summer programs where youth will engage in science-based storytelling through digital media

 
For Middle School: Pearson Young Scientists Program

• For rising 5-8th graders
• Located at the California Academy of Sciences with two one-day trips to Mount Tamalpais to engage in a variety of citizen science activities
• June 18-29 (including the weekend), 10 am-4 pm every day
• Participants will learn about citizen science and create an interactive mobile game experience for visitors to Mount Tam that teaches them about the natural landscape and how its changed over the years

 
For High School: Science in Action

• For rising 9th-12th graders
• Located at the California Academy of Sciences
• July 16-27, Monday through Friday, 10 am-4 pm
• Youth will work with our Digital Learning team and Visualization studio to create short 1-3 minute long stories about current topics in science to air in the Science in Action exhibit and on the Academy website

 
To qualify youth must be able to attend and participate fully every day of the program

ARE YOU INTERESTED? For more information or an application email pdasari@calacademy.org. Applications are due Saturday, May 19th 2012. Accepted participants will be informed by May 25th.

Digital Learning is support by generous grants from the Pearson Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Have a student that has made a video on Science or Nature in school, an after-school program, summer program, or independently?

Entries are now being accepted the 1st Annual KQED Science Youth Media Festival!

Festival Date & Location: June 10, 2012 at the Academy!

Deadline for submission: April 15, 2012

The theme for this year’s festival is Nature and Environmental Science. We are looking for videos produced by youth who are either in middle school or high school about the following topics: *wildlife, *water use, *oceans, *pollution, *cultural connections, *restoration, *sustainability, *environmental justice.

Prizes will be awarded for those entrants who are accepted to the festival and for winners on June 10th!

For more information and the application, visit the KQED website

The USA Science & Engineering Festival and the Kavli Foundation are challenging Grades 6-12 students across the world to brainstorm and share their ideas! This year’s contest theme is inspired by the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges. The NAE recently asked some of the world’s leading technological thinkers to identify what needs to be done to make people and our planet thrive.

Students worldwide are invited to submit entries to the 2012 video contest, with cash awards and prizes for the top entries. The best videos will be shown at the Festival Expo during April 27-29, 2012, where hundreds of thousands of science fans are expected to gather in Washington, D.C. The first place winner will also receive a travel stipend to attend the Expo.

To learn more or submit a video, visit the contest website.

The people over at the Crissy Field Center, part of the Golden Gate National Park, have created an excellent guide to the outdoor areas of San Francisco. With great descriptions of the City’s watersheds and what you can find at the parks and outdoor spaces, this resource can help you make the most of what is just outside your school’s door! See the following description from their website:
 
“Explore San Francisco’s natural history with your students.

Finding Urban Nature: An Educators’ Guide to Exploring San Francisco Natural History is not curriculum or a book of activities. It is written for adults who have an interest in natural history—and who are also educators. It will help you locate and learn about parks and natural areas near your schools, as well as provide enough background information so that you will feel comfortable exploring these areas with your students. Whether or not you are well-versed in the “whys” and “hows” of the natural world, we hope this guide will enable you to be a naturalist and to share that experience with your students.”

You can download a pdf of the guide, by scrolling down to the bottom of their website.

In our ongoing effort to increase the accessibility of our lesson database, we are excited to announce that we now have many of our lesson worksheets and materials posted in Spanish and Chinese!

Included in the new materials are scavenger hunts, like the Animal Adaptations Hunt and the Living Fossils Hunt; chaperone-lead hunts, like the Troubled Tree Frogs and Insect Anatomy; and worksheets for our anytime lessons, like Invent an Insect and Rock Cycle Roundabout.

To find which of our many lessons include translated materials, you can select either language from the drop-down “By Topic” menu in any of the three categories (At the Academy, Connected Experience, and Anytime Lessons). See below for help

Once you have found a lesson with translated materials you are interested in, you can download all files from the list on the upper right hand corner of the online lesson plan. >>

We also have three carbon cycle lesson plans fully translated into both Spanish and Chinese. You can access these at the top of the main search page.

Don’t forget we also encourage you to leave your comments about what works or doesn’t work when you use a lesson in your classroom! We are constantly updating the lessons as we discover better ways to teach them!