Teachers’ Lounge

As the new year begins, we at the Academy are excited about the many new developments coming in 2012. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a new aquarium gallery, Animal Attraction, will open February 11th, and prepare to be moved on May 26th with the opening of a major new exhibit and Planetarium show, Earthquake.

Changes are afoot in the Naturalist Center, as well. In order to free up resources to focus on creating more hands-on opportunities for visitors at the Academy to engage with science and sustainability, library materials are no longer available for loan.

The following is a timeline of when these changes will occur:

• New Naturalist Center lending cards are no longer available.
• March 1, 2012: Last day to renew an item already checked out
• April 1, 2012: Books and DVDs will stop circulating (any items checked out before April 1 will be due 21 days from the checkout date)

We know that access to books and DVDs is important to teachers and want to assure you that these resources will remain available for you to read and watch within the Naturalist Center space. Pages of particular interest can be scanned and e-mailed free of charge, or photocopied for a small fee.

On your next visit, stop by to check out the Naturalist Nook, a new space within the Naturalist Center dedicated to hands-on science activities, made possible by this shift. As always, the Naturalist Center will continue to offer reference services – helping you find answers to questions about the natural world and assisting with the identification of natural history specimens. The Naturalist Center is—and will continue to be—a dynamic resource for teachers and students who are curious to learn more about the natural world.

You can read all about the services, programs, and resources the Naturalist Center offers by going to their website and blog.

The University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) is offering a day long course on evolution!

As we look at the biodiversity around us, we stare in wonderment at complex courtship behaviors, bizarre ornamentation and display, extraordinary adaptations to severe conditions, and unusual means of communicating, eating, and reproducing. The diversity is overwhelming and evolution is the only explanation! Come join the experts to learn more — this short course will give you a chuckle as well as an increased appreciation for life around us. This short course is cosponsored by the Berkeley Natural History Museums (BNHM) and Science@Cal.

Presentations will include:

• Evolution revealed: How a musical instrument evolved from feathers by Kim Bostwick, Curator, Birds and Mammals, Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates
• Orchestrating the score: Complex communication strategies in jumping spiders by Damian O. Elias, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley
• Evolution can explain our sex lives by Marlene Zuk, Professor of Biology, UC Riverside
• And other talks from Steve Glickman, Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley and Eileen Lacey, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley

When: Saturday, March 3, 2012
Where: 2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley Campus
For more information: Visit their website
To Register: Click here

Our friends over at NatureBridge Golden Gate are offering teacher professional development programs! They can help you bring the natural world into your classroom to help teach science, math, and language arts standards.

Bring the Outside In
Saturday, February 25, 2012

Learn simple strategies for building community, using nature in lessons, and getting your students outdoors. Open to any educator, traditional and nontraditional.

Lessons from the Ocean
Saturday, March 10, 2012

Use the ocean to teach math, science, and language arts skills. Learn a plastics-in-the-ocean activity, learn more about ocean acidification’s effect on food webs, and explore cultural connections to the bay and the ocean. Content is focused on grades 5–8.

Our Changing Climate
Saturday, April 21, 2012

Learn to teach basic climate science and how to empower your students to take action. Practice teaching the carbon cycle, investigate “garbology,” and develop simple student action projects. Content is focused on grades 5–8.

Each session includes lunch and a take-away teaching toolkit that contains ready-to-use resources for the classroom.

Time: Workshops are from 9:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
Location: Chinese American International School, San Francisco
Cost: Free! Stipends available for those that attend two or more workshops this spring with another teacher from your school ($100 per person).
For more information: visit their website or contact Amy Osborne, aosborne@naturebridge.org

Join the City of San Jose as they present the 6th annual Bay Area Schools Environmental Conference.

• Discover a “Full House” of options to green your school and incorporate environmental education into classroom curriculum.
• Teachers that register will receive a free Solar Schoolhouse Teaching Solar Package (valued at $75) including a Teaching Solar book + dvd, Your Solar Home guidebook + dvd, & Solar Decathlon book + dvd.
• Bring your kids! Register your kids for the concurrent EcoKids Workshop available for children (7-14 years of age) of adult
  conference attendees.

When: Saturday, February 4, 2012 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Where: Corinthian Center (at the San Jose Athletic Club), San Jose, CA
Who:Teachers, Parents, Students, School Faculty, Administrators, Policymakers, Community Members, and Nonprofits
Cost: Register online for $20 through January 27 (fee includes continental breakfast and lunch); $40 afterwards.
To register or for more information, visit www.sanjoseca.gov/esd/schools.

Don’t know where to go or how to start?

The website, Masters In Education, was created in 2009 just for you! You just didn’t know it at the time!

Their goal is to help future students such as yourselves navigate easily and search specifically by state and campus in an easy to use database. Both online- and campus- based schools that offer master’s degrees in education are included. You can also search by the type of M.S. or M.Ed. degree you wish to pursue. Who knew there were so many choices out there?

New programs are constantly being added to their database. There is even a blog with more helpful tidbits. They’ve done the hard part for you. Now all you have to do is figure out what kind of degree to earn and where to go!