Module VII: Culture and Climate

Explain
Module VII started out with videos and information about the composition of the atmosphere and the early formation of our solar system, and I found myself again disappointed, wishing I had discovered this information about six weeks earlier. But the blog entry "Module VII: Carbon Connections" showed me some exciting ways to tie that information into my third quarter units on Chemistry! More than anything lately, the Explore Alaska course is showing  me how to make seventh grade Integrated Science truly integrated. I've tried to show connections and integrate different science topics as I teach students each year, but the connections and resources on Teacher's Domain are showing me better ways to make the connections meaningful and relevant, rather than superficial lip service.

Extend
The videos in the above-mentioned blog entry, along with the Cosmos video clip from Dave's Blog, will be excellent starting points for students' introduction to the periodic table. Focusing on carbon specifically will not only provide a good connecting theme as we learn about atomic number, mass, electron orbits, and other basic elemental facts, but will also allow me to refocus students on the idea we began with at the beginning of the year: that everything is a cycle. Not only are we drinking the same water that the dinosaurs did, we are also eating the same carbon that made up their bodies millions of years ago. That is definitely a concept that will grab students' attention!

Evaluate
As I mentioned above, the videos about elements will be the starting point for this year's units on the Periodic Table and Elements.  Much of the other information in the blog was equally useful for my own understanding. While a lot of the carbon cycle information is probably far beyond the scope of my curriculum (and my student's current abilities), it reinforced for me the importance of giving students a basic understanding of this information, since the decisions they make as adults will have such an immediate and important impact on the direction life on Earth takes. Even if I don't directly tackle the big issues with them, I'm providing a foundation for them to understand this information over their next decade of education and experience.

Three Colleagues
Not only were the resources in the Explore Alaska modules interesting and useful, but I found several of my colleagues blogs equally beneficial. Dave's blog has the aforementioned great video clip suggestion for my students.  Martha's blog is filled with wonderful quotations related to the module, some of which could be used as writing and/or discussion prompts for students. Janet's blog made me hope that she will share more of her husband's photos from his travels around the state.