TEACHER PORTAL - HOMEPAGE 7th & 8th Grade Science

7th & 8th Grade Science

Kathy Martin

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7th Grade General Life Science

This page is devoted to 7th grade life science curriculum. It includes introductory items such as equipment, safety etc. In addition, you'll find games and interactive sites.
Links

A Gold Mine of Links
This site contains applets, tests etc. for middle school science. Dozens of links. A gold mine!!!!
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills_8th_science.htm

Awesome Equipment lessons and quizzes
http://myweb.cableone.net/poweroy/safety/names001.htm

Body Systems: The Heart and Lungs
A very interactive site, complete with video of coronary bypass surgery. Ewwwwwww! Terrific animations and downloadables!
http://www.smm.org/heart/lungs/top.html

Bugscope
The Bugscope project is an educational outreach program for K-12 classrooms. The project provides a resource to classrooms so that they may remotely operate a scanning electron microscope to image "bugs" at high magnification. The microscope is remotely controlled in real time from a classroom computer over the Internet using a web browser.
http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/

Circulation Songs
Have you been looking everywhere for the St. Josephs Aspirin "Pump Your Blood" song and video? Search no more, for here it is, along with a Schoolhouse Rock Circulation song! The lyrics are here too.
http://www.stgabriel.net/lLauder/circulation_songs.htm

Cool Cosmos
This link from Cal Tech is a wealth of info--especially about infrared imaging. Look for the Yellowstone links!

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/index.html

Electromagnetic Waves
Here is a site that walks you though the mechanics of waves. Along the way are some demonstrations and videos. This would be a great use for students that are absent or need extra help.

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/waves_particles/

Fossil Links-Uncovering the Past
HEY--Get out of the text book!!! Here are some activities to give your students some hands-on experience working with fossils and collecting evidence. This works not only for 7th grade life science, but also for 8th graders in the realm of astronomy and looking for life on other planets. You know you get the questions! Well, give the kids a chance to collect some evidence and come up with some conclusions--based upon FACTS!

http://www.chabotspace.org/vsc/teacher/schoolvisit/lifescience/fossils.asp

Fossils, Rocks and Time
Here is a great site dealing with an overview of geologic time and the use of fossils to determine the age of layers in the earth. Have students go through the first section and take notes--not print out pages they'll never read, but actually take notes. Look for vocabulary terms. Have them come up with their own version of a time line similar to the one at the start of the chapter.

Then, have them switch papers and have them peer-check for plagarism. I've found that students can be the harshest critics of their peers. It should start to give them an idea of the idfference between simply copying items word for word, versus taking notes. Kill two birds with one stone!

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/fossils/contents.html

Frank Potter's Science Gems

Have you seen this? What a fabulous collection of links to websites for all areas of science. Pass this on to your friends! Check back weekly, for they will continue to add new resources to the more than 12000 WWW resources that have been located so far.

http://www.sciencegems.com/life.html

Genes: What is a Gene?
This site presents an interactive tour of the human gene. Content explores what a gene is and how they work.

Great for individual computers or whole class instruction! Super animation.
http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/units/basics/tour/gene.swf

Genetics Poem Project
This is a great project as a summative assessment tool--can you say application? There is an evaluation rubric also included. It would be easy to adapt this to a physical science concept as well.

http://www.howe.k12.ok.us/~jimaskew/bio/bproj4.htm

Hall of Science and Achievement
Look at all the discoveries made! Check out the people beind the science.
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/halls/sci

Life Science Safari
Watch the introduction to this site and then click on living things.

http://vilenski.org/science/safari/

Putting DNA to Work
Putting DNA to Work
Putting DNA to Work explores how DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)can be used to detect diseases, find similarities between humans and other species, determine how traits are inherited from one generation to the next, improve crops, and catch criminals as well as where it is found and other background information. There are five multimedia activities that include tracking down an inherited disease, using the FBI's CODIS system to identify the culprit in a crime, discover how diseases are identified, and examine how the genes of familiar food have mutated to transform what we eat. Teaching materials include lessons and interactive activities at introductory, intermediate and advanced levels. Included at the site are a well organized list of related Web links and suggestions for further reading.

http://www.koshlandscience.org/exhibitdna/index.jsp

Science Crossword Puzzles
Here is on online crossword puzzle site you might use in a computer lab or have students access from home.

A JavaScript enabled web browser (Netscape Navigator 4 or Internet Explorer 4 (or higher)) is required.
http://education.jlab.org/sciencecrossword/index.html

Science Explorations
Science Explorations is a collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History and Scholastic, created to promote science literacy among students in grades 3-10. Science Explorations offers a series of online investigations featuring the latest scientific discoveries of the museum's experts. Upcoming investigations include invertebrates (in February) and reptiles (in May). The Web site includes a searchable database of lesson plans and activities, teaching tools and more.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/explorations/

Science Word Hangman
This site lets you play a game of hangman against the computer.
http://education.jlab.org/vocabhangman/sci_6_01/176.html

Seeing the Light
This is a great "pick and choose" site from Discovery School. The actual activity would be very illustrative to students, but what I really like are the discussion questions (think homework questions), extensions (extra credit/ make-up lab for absent students) and the links (again, extra-credit/make-up work). Another nice feature is the rubric used to score the lab. It's pretty basic, but it's nice to have a starting point.
http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/seeingthelight/

Songs for Teaching: Habitat
This is a cute one to use when you teach habitat and evolution.

Listen to the words of Bill "Mr. Habitat" Oliver as Jeff Schroeder performs "Habitat," a song about different homes animals have. He also encourages us to protect those areas, on behalf of the animals that live there.
Here is your CA Standard: Standard 3.
Biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a.
Students know both genetic variation and environmental factors are causes of evolution and diversity of organisms.
Standard 3.

http://www.songsforteaching.com/jeffschroeder/habitat.htm

The Heart: An Online Exploration
Visit this site for an interactive exploration into the workings of the heart. Take the linked Heart and Blood quizzes to check your knowledge.
http://sln.fi.edu/biosci/heart.html

Thermal Biology Institute
Yellowstone offers a glimpse of what early life was (7th grade), and what might be on other planets or elsewhere in the universe (8th grade). The enzyme used to cut apart strands of DNA was first discovered in the hot pools of bubbling acid in the park. And currently, NASA sends its scientists there to look at what lives in these inhospitable envirnments to see what life might look like in other inhospitable places, like, say, Venus!

http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/yellowstone/geobiology.html

Virtual Frog Dissection
University of Virginia: Virtual Frog Dissection

One of the more famous efforts at replacing physical dissection in anatomy/biology labs. Very nice mixture of pictures, Quicktime Movies, and interactive quizzes about the process.

http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/frog/home.html

Wired Science
Check out some wild facts about living things.
http://www.scienceyear.com/wired/

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